Waiting for Absolution
by mikoki
Summary: Chapters 13,14,15 added. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!Michael’s freed from Sona by Linc, Sara and co. But things will get worse before they get better. And that, ladies and gents, would be the understatement of the year! So sit back and prepare for some major angst.
1. under a red moon

**Waiting for absolution**

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Okay, let's get things straight!

I'm totally confident in my role as a **reader **and **reviewer**. I'm the total opposite of confident when it comes to my role of **writer.**  
  
This is my first fanfic … **EVER**! My mother language is not English and I know shit about creative writing. It's taken me over a year of self-convincing and self-slapping to get my rear behind this keyboard.

I have this great story in my head, but I experienced it firsthand that envisioning something in my head is one thing, writing it down in a good story is quite another thing.  
**Note to all the great authors on this site:** How do you freakin' do it?!!! Really?! Please tell me? I was in awe of all of you guys before writing this, but now I just worship the ground you walk on!!

Anyhow, this piece is probably going to suck big time! I apologise upfront for your wasted time here. But maybe with your help and reviews I can improve myself a little and learn along the way!

So please leave a note, for humanitarian reason, to help me suck a little less! Really, it would be your good deed of the day. Hihi! And please don't be shy about leaving criticism. I would rather have people beg me to "please stop writing", than you'd leave me in oblivion, I would continue and you'd end up dying of a heart attack caused by reading my brain-dead stories. Now, I wouldn't want to be responsible for your death, right.

Okay, sorry about the ramble, anxious Mieke listening to 'Frisco in den disco' on the radio makes for a very, very jittery and nervous girl!

ENJOY!

Cheers Mikey

Disclaimer: I haven't got any copyright on Prison Break. Sad but true. All credit goes to Paul Scheuring & co, baby, those lucky bastards!**

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**Chapter One: Under a Red Moon**

The rocking chair gently swayed from front to back, a movement created by the soft push of its occupant's right foot. The woman's left leg was bent close to her body. She desperately wanted to pull up her other leg too, in a childlike gesture to close up her body and protect it against any future harm. But the placid swaying of the chair seemed to soothe her restless mind a little so she kept on pushing.

Her body was covered by a thick wool blanket. Although the Panamanian summer temperature was still high and sultry, it felt more like a cold Chicago winter night to her. She shivered again for the umpteenth time and tucked the blanket more securely under her chin.

She turned her head sideways and looked out at the clear night's sky. The moon had coloured blood red, a natural phenomenon she last had witnessed many years back.

Her memories carried her to a time of innocence. A time with no absent father, no deceased mother, no addictions to morphine or a blue-eyed tattooed man for that matter.

_She'd been thirteen years old that day, but it had felt like thirty. After weeks of nervy contemplation, she'd finally decided to tell Evan she liked him…a lot. That nervous feeling however had soon turned into devastation and humiliation, when Evan had told her he already had a girlfriend, namely, her best friend Stacy. She'd run home that evening like she was competing for an Olympic gold medal. Blinded by the tears of a heart broken for the first time, she had tripped over a small tree root. With a bruised knee and bloodied arm she'd continued running home and had locked herself in her room the minute she got in. _

_Later that evening her father had entered her room and had silently picked her fragile body up. He'd sat them in the rocking chair by her window and had told her everything was going to be all right. She'd felt so safe that night, tucked away in his big strong arms while his gentle voice rocked her into a slumbering state. He'd talked about everything and nothing at the same time, trivial things, many of which hadn't registered in her snoozing mind, but one particular moment she remembered like it happened yesterday. He'd stared silently at the red moon for a long time, and while tenderly stroking her injured arm he'd told her that in some ancient cultures the red moon symbolised the spilling of innocent blood on that day. _

She didn't really understand why she recalled that specific moment so well. Maybe she wasn't broken beyond repair after all; maybe she still had a little naïve innocence left hidden within her bruised soul, maybe she was just a scared little girl who missed her father and who wanted nothing more than to tell him she loved him all along, maybe holding on to this one special moment made the years of misunderstanding, angry reproval and rebellious tears disappear like snow in the sun. Maybe.

She traced her fingers softly over the long-healed skin on her elbow. A little white scar was the only evidence left of that day so long ago. She looked back up to the red moon so prominently present in the immaculate dark sky, and felt her hazel eyes tear up. Innocent blood had indeed been spilled this day.

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Minutes later the redhead's gaze shifted back from the coppery moon to the bed in the middle of the darkened room. She had been mesmerized by it and its precious content for the better part of the night.

She knew she should go to sleep. The last few days had been agonizing at best. All the action, stress and nerve wracking moments had taken their toll on her body. While she hadn't slept or eaten properly in the last five days, an adrenaline-induced high and numerous cups of coffee had prevented her from shutting down.

Now, after all the tumult had died down, her body was fiercely rebelling against her wakeful state of mind. But no amount of exhaustion or excruciating pain could keep her away from this, from watching that bed and its most valuable cargo.

There he was, Michael, all battered and bruised, his frighteningly skinny body marked by bloody lacerations and covered by tattered dirty clothes. But still, there he was, her Michael, warm and breathing, not cold and mingled, with eyes dulled by death, like she'd seen so many nights before in her dreams.

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The ambiance of the scene in front of her was quiet, maybe too quiet for her liking. Except for the slight squeaking of her chair every time she rocked back, along with the steady drip of Michael's intravenous unit of blood, nothing could be heard. She was still deciding if the latter sound soothed or unnerved her more when visions of earlier bombarded her distressed mind yet again.

When Lincoln and Jane had first dragged him into their beach house earlier that evening, she'd switched into full doctor mode instantly. She'd quickly scanned his form for any life-threatening injuries, but other than plenty of bruises and cuts, a few sore ribs and a broken finger he seemed relatively out of the woods.

They'd been prepared for this situation. In the days prior to the showdown, Jane had provided them with syringes, antiseptics, units of nutritional solutions and all other medical equipment she might need. So, the minute they'd laid him down, she'd sunk on her knees next to the bed, unravelled her medical kit and started to address the ugliest wounds and cuts.

She knew now she'd shown signs of shock then. The vile of morphine had fallen twice out of her trembling hands and she had stopped her actions on his broken body too often to swipe at her wildly blinking watery eyes. It wasn't till Jane had softly touched her shoulder to give her a reassuring squeeze, that she'd regained herself. For just a second she'd locked eyes with the strong blonde next to her, and in that moment she'd never felt more grateful for anything in her whole life, than for the help and hope this ally had brought.

She shook her head in a vain attempt to wile away the memories, but one look at his unguarded sleeping face, made her remember how exactly he became so still.

When they'd brought him in earlier he'd been dangling between blurred awareness and unconsciousness. For the first couple of minutes he'd been talking gibberish while looking everywhere with unfocused foggy eyes. It wasn't until Sara started to disinfect a rather large laceration just above his groin area he'd sprung alive on the bed.

He'd started kicking and screaming, knocking over her instruments tray and her self in the process. His heavily booted foot had connected with her left cheek, and she'd felt it bruise immediately. She'd been dazed for a few seconds, sitting there on the floor surrounded by spilled medical instruments. In a hazy manor she'd softly touched her already swelling face. The noise around her had quieted down to nothingness and black spots had started to cloud her vision. The sweet offer of refuge into oblivion however, had been interrupted by a frantic Lincoln bursting into the room. She'd shacked off her natural drunkenness and quickly scrambled back to her feet.

The sight before her had paralysed her again. Lincoln and two of Jane's men were trying to trap down Michael's wriggling body. Lincoln had Michael's left arm in a vice like grip, while the other two held down his other arm and legs. Lincoln had tried to soothe his little brother into calmness by whispering desperate and sweet sounding pleas into his ear. But, this had only seemed to have aggravated him more. He'd tossed and turned, arched his back off the mattress in a way Sara knew had to be very painful with his injuries.

She couldn't recall how many times he'd screamed "No!" "Let me go!" and, "Please, don't do this!" But it was the way he'd screamed it, his anxious voice tainted with so much agony and torment, she was sure to haunt her nightmares till the day she died.

She had been in shock for the second time that night, and it wasn't until Lincoln's violent shout of her name had echoed in the room, that she'd come back down to the present. After registering that the three men were rapidly losing their battle in overpowering a hysterical Michael, the doctor in her had kicked in. One minute later Michael's tense body had relaxed due to the sedative she'd injected.

She sighed again and rubbed her forehead. A headache was slowly building and the only remedy for it seemed to catch a good few hours of sleep. But as she closed her eyes all she could see was the frightened look and tortured voice of this once so confident man.

Not long after she'd administered the anaesthetic, she'd tried to finish attending to his cuts, but with the little fight his body had left, he had moaned and whimpered away from her in the most vulnerable gesture she'd ever seen of him. She knew she shouldn't feel hurt about this. He was oblivious to the real world around him. But his rejection to her soft touch made her tremble with feelings of guilt and insecurity.

They all had decided that letting him sleep was the best thing to do at that moment, so she'd stopped treating his wounds. She'd soothed her inner self with the knowledge that the clean environment of her bedroom, had to be already a vast improvement to the filthy and dirty surroundings of Sona.

So, there she was sitting in a rocking chair, wide awake in the middle of the night, with the mother of all headaches looming under her skull, and a purple coloured left cheek. There she was, looking at a bruised and gaunt body full of treated and untreated wounds. Looking at a Michael who wasn't quite catching up to the fact he'd been saved.

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"Sara?"

She jerked her head a little too fast towards the door, regretting it almost instantly when a sharp pain shot up through her cheek. She winced and fought back the tears that threatened to fall for the umpteenth time that night.

Lincoln was sitting on the ground with his back and head leaning against the door, his muscular legs stretched out before him. He'd fallen asleep in that position a couple of hours ago. He'd been even more worn out than her, having actually participated in the rescue, and when his exhaustion had finally caught up with him, she hadn't gotten the heart to wake him up. So she'd simply covered him up with a blanket, hoping he wouldn't be all too stiff later on from sleeping in that awkward position.

"Yes?" she croaked in a tone altered by pent up emotion and fatigue. She cringed up her nose a little. Why did her voice sound so funny to her?

Lincoln's weary gaze shifted to the bed and back "How is he doing?"

She heard herself cough, a little strangled sound, and started to speak. "Most of the lacerations are shallow but it seems like he's lost a lot of blood over the past months, and apparently his body never got the proper time to recover decently, but two blood units should be enough. The food deprivation is a bigger problem. " She stopped only to take a much needed breath of air before rambling on "He can't weigh more than 120 pounds, Lincoln, that's way too little for someone of his build and height. He's so skinny you could have broken him into pieces while you were holding him down. Linc, I'm sure."

"Sara?" Lincoln tried to interrupt but she would have none of it.

"My god, I mean, what do they feed them in there, water and a couple of bread slices every day. People who voluntarily go on hunger strikes get more than that. What kind of hell is this Sona place, Linc? In what kind of twisted pit did I push him?"

Sara was in her own twilight zone now, a world created by five months of unbearable guilt and remorse for what had gone down that fateful day she'd shot Bill Kim. As she carried on aimless, she failed to notice Lincoln had gotten up from his position by the door, and was coming her way while rubbing his sore neck.

"Sara?" He tried again, a little more forceful this time.

"And, his cuts and bruises. I don't know how you guys talked me into not treating them right away." She started to make jittery gestures with her hands towards Michael's form on her bed. "I mean, they can get infected and in his condition that's definitely not a good thing and."

"SARA!"

She blinked once, twice, finally seeing Lincoln in a crouched position in front of her rocking chair. For a moment her forehead cringed into pensive wrinkles as she looked back to the door, not quite understanding how he turned up sitting here in front of her without her noticing. Her eyes lowered to her hands in her lap, and she felt a warm blush start to creep up her face.

They locked eyes again. She saw the corner of his lips turn up a little, his first attempt at a genuine smile in over five months. "Okay, let's try that again shall we? How is he doing?"

She let a deep sigh escape her lips, like she had been holding up her breath from the first time she laid eyes on Michael that night. Lincoln's hands had locked with hers in her lap and she squeezed them gently. "He's fine…" but couldn't help herself "for now!"

His right hand slowly crept up to gently caress her swollen cheek. She tempered the urge to wince. "How are you doing? And I'm asking in a non Joey-like way." She felt herself smile a little at his lame effort at humouring her. Tough, bad-assed, ex-death row con, but he sure knew his late nineties pop culture!

"It will heal."

"Sara!" The edge was back in his voice. But she planned on winning this round.

"I will heal!" She said more courageously than she felt, but with an air of conclusion about it.

She saw a glimpse of defeat pass over his eyes while he planned to drop the subject.

She didn't know why but, she raised her left hand and laid it on his one that gently stroked her roughed up face. Her eyes darkened with sorrow. "He's so gonna freak about this. He'll blame himself again."

Lincoln, who noticed the change back to a more depressive mood tried to chide her. "Well, then we'll just have to 'un-freak' him about it."

He saw a subtle but hopeful shift in her eyes and that urged him on. "And hey, once he's healed properly and you two finally get down and dirty with it, he's not gonna have to feel guilty about ANYTHING, with all the teeth marks you're gonna leave on that sexy body of his."

Sara felt her jaw hit the ground before she burst into giggles and slapped him on the arm.

"Lincoln!" She yelled incredulously.

"Sara!" He responded in the same manor she'd just called his name, before starting to chuckle quietly. She shook her head firmly. "I can't believe you just said THAT!"

They quieted down after a few moments, the atmosphere more positive than anytime in the past five months, and they both shifted their gaze to the sleeping man on the bed. Lincoln rocked back on his heels until he fell on his bottom and leaned against the radiator under the window. He'd pulled her with him out of the chair. She adjusted the blanket on both of them and snuggled up close to him on the ground. While she ducked her head under his chin and felt his big arms squeeze more securely around her, she suddenly was drawn back to the memory of her father and the red moon so long ago. The same feeling of security washed over her. Like these arms could protect her from anything the world would throw at her. Same frightened girl, different set of arms, same soul-healing power.

They both watched the object of their affection sleep a dreamless sleep in a bed not six feet from them. And slowly but surely their broken down souls started to build up again.

Minutes pasted and her eyes started to droop. With the last strength she possessed she squeezed his chest a little "I'm glad you're his brother." She whispered.

He shifted a little underneath her and she felt a soft kiss land upon her hair "I'm glad you're his girlfriend."

Right before she gave into slumber she heard him say "He's gonna be alright. We're gonna be alright". If she'd been more alert she's sure she would have noticed the slight quiver in his voice, a quiver that indicated more insecurity and doubt that he was willing to show. The truth was he'd never seen his little brother in such a bad predicament. He knew his brother was strong, much stronger than Michael gave himself credit for. But when that comatose body had been dropped in Lincoln's arms earlier that night in the exchange, and those liquid, murky, steal-blue eyes had locked with his, he'd received quite a shock to his system. Those hadn't been his baby brother's eyes. Those had been something different all together.

He just hoped that where ever his Michael was, he could overcome this and find a safe way back to them. Because his and Sara's absolution lay in the salvation of his brother, and without that, all three of them would be doomed.

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Chapter End Notes: 

**DUM DUM DUM DUUUUUM** sighs dramatically

WIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !!!!!! Major ANGST FEST coming up.

Bare in mind, my little friends. I might be the biggest sucker for angst, but in the end, a happy finale is all I crave for! So don't worry too much.

The road to absolution IS going to be rocky though (with some very nasty and adult themes)!!

Remember that humanitarian act today!! Go **review** this sucker!! Shoo!


	2. Let the games begin

**Waiting for absolution**

I'm still really nervous about this so please drop me a line after reading this chapter!!

I'm not sure about this one. It's way too long and I really don't know if it works. It feels like a filler chapter to me. shrugs ah, we'll see I guess.

Oh yes, it gets graphic at the end and **not in a good** way. This story handles about very angsty and adult themes that can happen in male prisons and it's labbeled M for something sweeties!!!!!! So if you're not up for that: DON'T READ IT!!!!!! Michael is gonna suffer, BIG TIME, So don't say I didn't warn you!!

Disclaimer: Still not mine, still all Paul Scheuring's! DAMN!

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**Chapter two: Let the games begin**

Sara scrunched up her nose and leaned closer to the mirror. Two slender fingers gently probed at her inflamed left cheek, nudging and exploring the tender flesh beneath their tips.

She flinched again, cursing herself under her breath for her own inpatient roughness, but still kept on poking.

With a slight air of wonder she noticed how the coppery blood, trapped underneath her delicate skin was already slightly changing in colour around the edges. The redness up around her cheekbone was slow but steadily being replaced by a more angry purplish shade. Her inner doctor's fascination marvelled at the physiological process that was taking place. In a week her face would show off a nice yellowish brown tint. She shrugged her shoulders and started to put on some anti-inflammation cream. _Well, that's just swell_, she thought.

She locked eyes with herself and sighed. "You're quite the looker, girl." She murmured.

She kept on staring "Five months of mental pictures, and THIS…is how he's gonna see you again". She shrugged again. She actually couldn't care less about how she looked. It was a stupid bruise and it would heal, period. She only hoped that Michael would see it the same way. A puff of air pretentiously squeezed out between her lips. Not likely!

The staring contest with herself was effectively broken when she lifted both hands to her face and started to massage her tired eyes and forehead. She inhaled deeply while her hands and fingers streaked through her hair to clasp together at the back of her head.

Her thoughts wandered back to the injured man in the room a couple of doors down. An uneasy feeling was starting to grow in her belly, and although she so badly wanted to deny it, she knew she was probably fighting a losing battle.

At first everything had seemed fine. Lincoln and she had slept for about two hours. To an outsider it must have looked very uncomfortable, and when she'd woken up, all her stiff muscles had screamed in protest, but to her it had felt like the most refreshing sleep she'd had in ages.

She'd checked on Michael but her full bladder had quickly forced her to distance herself from him. From there on, it had all gone down-hill. The minute she'd closed the bathroom's door an immense wave of panic had struck her chest. The four walls had seemed to close in on her with the speed and force of a freight train, putting so much invisible pressure on her body she'd started chocking for breath. She'd almost soiled herself in the frantic and inpatient actions that followed. Lowering her pants and peeing had seemed like the most impossible thing to do, and she'd actually had to use all of her strength and willpower to not just faint right then and there.

Her overload of thoughts had felt like ear-piercing screams, and they all had seemed to fight a raging battle for dominance inside her skull. _Why did you leave him? How, could you leave him alone? These walls are too fucking green! He's going to be gone! Where is he? There's a towel missing on the rack. He's going to die and you will never see him again ever!_

She'd vomited a little bile in her own mouth, and with a delirious chuckle of twisted happiness, she praised herself for keeping her stomach empty for over two days.

As soon as she was done, she'd sprinted back to her bedroom, almost tripping over some shoes she'd neglected in the hallway a couple of days ago. The unbearable pressure on her chest had seemed to disintegrate the minute she'd put distance between her and the bathroom.

And then her body had just stopped, frozen in time and place. She'd stood in the doorframe, unblinking, unwavering and just watched. All sounds and surroundings gone, her tunnel vision fixed on him.

His whiskers and curly black matted hair was much longer than she remembered seeing the night before. Would it feel soft against her skin? Dark full eyelashes protecting those emerald windows to his soul, how she wanted to crawl into his soul and take all the pain and suffering away from him. High bronzed cheek bones, bruised and battered by Satan's knuckles but honestly the most beautiful facial structure she'd ever had the privilege to lay her eyes on. And last those lips, those blood-red plump fleshy lips. The broken little pieces of skin made them look so dry, and the multitude of small cuts rendered them bloody, but in that moment she'd wanted nothing more than to wet them carefully with her tongue and make them soft and healed again with her kisses.

As she stood again in the same bathroom she so desperately fled just over an hour ago. She diagnosed what had happened earlier as a very severe panic attack. She'd experienced those before, in another time so long ago, in a life tainted by drugs, greed and self neglect. But then she'd been so high on the monster running through her veins that, she either _didn't _or _physically couldn't_ give a damn about fighting it.

What she'd experienced this morning had scared the hell out of her. She couldn't let herself go like that. She didn't have the luxury of losing control. Healing Michael was her only priority now. He would need her more than ever, the whole of her, and she would be damned before she'd give him a semi-done shallow version of herself. Fighting it was the only option, and she would fight, for Michael.

She closed her eyes and focussed on her breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Slow and steady. Inhale. Exhale. She felt the sudden so familiar feeling of separation anxiety slowly flow away from her muscles. Inhale. Exhale. She knew she'd have to be very conscious about this silent but deadly threat. She braced herself for the impending inner war, an inner combat that all but promised to go down calmly.

"Fuck". She groaned.

After the panic attack she'd almost surgically attached herself to Michael's body. She'd sat next to him on the bed and had run her fingers shyly over his face, his arms, the exposed skin of his belly. She'd revelled in the knowledge that his defences were broken down by the drugs, because she'd feared another rejection of her touch and that moment would have been her downfall. In the next half hour she'd touched him more than ever before, and she could, for the love of the Gods, not comprehend how she'd survived the last five months without his warmth beneath her fingertips.

She couldn't turn to Lincoln for help, 'cause he'd been right there beside her on the other side of the bed. Gripping Michael's slender hand between his two fleshier ones, like he was dangling over a ravine and that arm with that hand was his only lifeline. His eyes equally spellbound as hers by the sleeping man's face.

The odds were off: two very clingy people with a severe case of separation fear, concerning this one precious man against one man whose body and mind seemed to want nothing more than to run and hide and never look back.

She groaned again, but a little deeper this time. "Fuck."

She made herself recall how common sense had kicked in earlier after a good half hour of desperate touches. Michael was still sedated and they'd believed they had another hour, maybe two before he'd wake. They'd made a pact and set a goal. With a shower, a change of clothes and some much needed food in their systems, they would be prepared for the upcoming struggle. And so she found herself in the small bathroom, freshly showered and ready to go down to eat the breakfast Lincoln was preparing right that minute.

She gave one last glance at herself in the mirror. A virtually unnoticeable nod was given to her mirror image. The fire blazed anew in her eyes as she left the room. Let the games begin!

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Her nose was being attacked by the most delicious smell the minute she set foot in the kitchen. Her stomach turned and screamed venomously inside her belly like a sour neglected bitch. God, she was hungry! She stopped in her tracks and leaned against the doorframe, taking a much needed minute to unwire her stressed out mind and observe the scene before her.

Lincoln stood in front of the stove. His one hand stirring the scrambled eggs with a wooden spatula, his other hand held a small bottle of basil. His attention was fully drawn to the information on the little flask. He'd cleaned up well, he looked almost carefree standing there barefoot in front of the stove performing such a mundane task as cooking, dressed in a freshly washed jeans and a new long-sleeved shirt, and with a shaven face to top things off. Unfortunately, his weary eyes and worn-out face were a dead give away for a much less cheery mood.

She couldn't quite begin to understand how their special bond had come to be. They'd been thrown together by forces beyond their control. At first it had been awkward. A play of two seemingly opposite protagonists, forced into a relationship based on too much guilt and indebtedness. But, along the way they'd discovered they had many things in common, a long list of both good and bad, but undeniably led by their strong love for the same man. In the past months they'd fought, screamed and even thrown things at each other. Just like they'd talked, laughed and cried together. They could be dysfunctional at best sometimes, but she'd honestly never seen a better team than them.

He was the older protective brother she'd never had, and she the little sister for him.

He was the proud and supporting father she lost so long ago. And she the mother he'd never forget. If they'd met in another life, she was certain he could have been the strong but gentle lover she'd always missed. But more importantly, in this life, he was the best friend she'd ever had.

She kept on watching him a moment longer before clearing her throat. "If that's what it takes?" She pointed to the stove "I think I'll ask your brother to disappear to a godforsaken hellhole more often!"

He stared at her with serious eyes, and for a moment she feared she overstepped her boundaries. Absurd humour and sarcasm offered at the most inappropriate times had always been his preferred choice of weapon to keep the stress at bay. She'd soon grown to love his ability to lighten the mood, if just for one second. It was never meant disrespectfully, and always offered as just a short reprieve from the suffocating reality of their lives. She frowned when he didn't respond.

He put the bottle of spice down, grabbed a frozen bag of peas and threw it at her.

She caught it and searched his eyes with a confused gaze. "Put that on your cheek." He nodded towards the cold sack in her hands, while turning out the stove. She started walking to the set table "Lincoln" she offered with an air of professionalism. He sighed with tiredness before she could continue, "Woman, now is not the time to argue with me!"

She sat down while he started to fill their plates with the yummy goodness her stomach craved so much. "You know, this is not going to help. If an icepack isn't applied immediately after the incident, it's not gonna help."

"Just," He rubbed his tired eyes for a second "humour me."

She frowned a little, but wrapped the bag of peas in a towel and pressed it to her cheek. She winced a little, but had to admit the cold sensation was easing her pain a little.

She started digging into her plate with her free hand. Curiously watching Lincoln out of the corner of her eyes while wondering what brought on his current strange behaviour. She knew she wouldn't have to wait long. Michael excelled in bottling up and hiding his inner turmoil, but that was one characteristic his older brother did _not_ possess.

"I mean," There it was "can I be anymore redundant than this. I feel so helpless. Jane's working out there" he strongly pointed outside with his finger "to get everything straight and you are doing your doctor stuff in here to cure my brother. He's _my _brother for crying out loud, he threw away everything for me, a dense moronic jackass, and now all I do is get in your way."

A frustrated sigh left his mouth "I just wish I could do…more…anything."

"I mean, he's my brother, Sara. He has to be alright…he has to be alright" The last part was nothing more than a mere whisper and Sara swallowed hard when she saw his troubled eyes glaze over. Before any of his tears could fall, she scooted closer to him and grabbed the back of his neck with her right hand. She squeezed softly but firmly enough for him to raise his eyes to hers. "He will be okay." She bobbed her head up and down in a yes-gesture and coerced him to do it with her. "He will be."

They stared at each other for what felt like ages, until one particular loud grump from Sara's stomach broke the intense moment. They both chuckled and Sara's cheeks began to blush a little. She rolled her eyes "I guess, she agrees"

After they'd finished eating in comfortable silence, Sara let Lincoln put some soothing crème on her bruise. A content puff of air left her lungs, caused by the delicate touch of this man and the look of cute concentration on his face when he performed the task. After rubbing it on he kissed her forehead and pulled her into a hug. "Thanks for making me do this. Even after you'd already put it on yourself!" she felt him whisper against her ear and she smiled sheepishly.

He started to say something else, but the calm atmosphere was violently broken by the most agonizing scream she'd ever heard. For a moment time stood still all the blood drained from her face, and then she was running. They both were. Taking three stairs at a time, it only took them ten seconds to reach the battle zone.

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_He wouldn't cry. He vowed that to__ him self that this time, he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing him cry. But as he saw them coming out of the corners of his eyes, he felt the first fracture starting to crack the foundation of his plan. His vision became glazed and blurry by unshed tears, and he cursed himself for being so weak. He felt the invisible hand of panic go around his throat in a death grip. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move, there were too many of them, they were too big. He whimpered and started to retreat into body, as he saw their faces twist into menacing smiles. They were mocking his futile attempt at fleeing the inevitable. _

_His heart beat so loudly in his ears it drowned out every other sound. He backed away further and found himself trapped in a dark secluded area off the yard. He saw the few remaining young men, quickly get up to leave to the more crowded section around the corner. They looked at him with a mixture of sorrow and relief in their liquid eyes. Sorrow for what was to come, relief for the fact that this time they weren't the prize. They left him all alone, like every other person had done in his life._

_His unhealed body started to shake violently in anticipation of the coming intrusion. He slowly started to shake his head from left to right. The salt of his tears irritated the cuts on his lips after his once dry eyes had so easily lost the battle. In an incomprehensible move to escape this atrocity, his body had started to run. His weak mind wanted to protest, this was exactly what they wanted. They were like a pack of savage wolves hunting their pray, toying with him, laughing at him, but by running he only made them more excited. His body's primitive instinct to hide from danger had easily won over his vulnerable mind. And now it was all too late._

_Before he knew what happened he was slammed face first against the wall. He was trapped between the dirty cold wall and the filthy bulk of a large Hispanic man. While his attacker leaned in close, Michael's flaring nostrils were filled with the stench of death. His throat started to dry heave and he pressed his eyes shut tight. His whole body shut down when he felt the larger man behind him rub his covered erection against his own back side. It felt too big, it would not fit. _

"_Thanks for the chase, pretty boy"._

_Every second had felt like an agonizing hour until that point. But now, everything was speeding up, and he'd have given anything for just one more second to prepare. Both his arms were grabbed and stilled by faceless accomplices. He heard several zippers lower and then his bare legs were attacked by the oppressive summer's heat. Michael started to cry and whimper in earnest now, all plans to put up a brave front forgotten. __He hoped it would be quick, but feeling the four sweaty monsters around him, that hope was shattered before it even had time to build. _

_He felt the tip of the man's large cock, brush against his butt cheeks, and felt his self-esteem shatter in irreparable pieces. In a minute he would be reduced from a man to a mere fucking hole for four beasts. His puffy eyes widened in horror and the panic squeezed his chest. He'd never felt more scared, the only thoughts in his head were that they seemed too big, and he was to dry, and it wouldn't fit, it wouldn't fit, it wouldn't fit! _

_However, the last thought before his body was brutally assaulted and torn up was Lincoln. Lincoln. Both the cause of his nightmare now, as well as the reason why he would do it all over again. His big brother, both his bittersweet downfall, as well as his savior in so many ways. If Lincoln would be here right now he knew the four monsters would be dead in under a minute. A strange sense of peace settled over his stressing body, and he relaxed a little, however when the too large shaft entered him in one merciless and powerful stroke. And the grunting and moaning fiend behind him began to pump into his vulnerable body like a mad beast; he couldn't help but let out the most horrifying scream._

_His mind turned blank, a__ll the feelings of pain, humiliation, and horror melted together in his head, and suddenly he felt like floating. He swore he could have heard her voice just now, whispering his name, in a way only she could. With her soft tongue; and sweet breath caressing every syllable, he swore he could have smelled her lavender-scented perfume mixed with the strong protective musk of his brother. And then, just like that, all went black. _

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Oooohhhh Michael, Please forgive me!!!!!!!!!!!

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	3. Jaded into numbness

Is anybody even reading this story??????????

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**Chapter Three: Jaded into numbness**

Lincoln and Sara tried to push their bodies through the doorframe at the same time. They stumbled a bit and the force of Lincoln's strong frame almost sent her crashing down to the ground. For a second Sara noted that, if the situation had been less dire, she would have laughed at the comical picture they'd created.

The scene in front of her however knocked the air out of her lungs. Michael's body was turned on it's right side and it had adopted a foetal position. His knees were pulled up impossibly tight to his chest. Sara noticed that the grip of his arms and hands around those knees was so strong, it made his knuckles turn white from the pressure. His feet were twitching spasmodically and his head was shaking ever so softly.

Sara observed with horror that he'd knocked over his IV-stand, pulling out the catheter with the nutritional solution in the process. She could see smudges of blood on the bed sheets and sticky fine lines of the coppery fluid were already drying on his left lower-arm. The hollow of his left elbow where the catheter had been inserted, was obstructed from her sight. But she could already imagine what damage the ripped out IV-line had caused to his fragile skin. Her eyes darkened. Another wound on his body, another scar on his soul, would it ever stop?

They each sprinted to a different side of the bed and crawled on top of it, like eager siblings who were secretly going to jump on it's mattress behind their parents back.

Sara sat behind him, her bent legs pulled underneath her and softly touched his left shoulder. He flinched away again, but this time she ignored it. She scooted closer to his head and brought her other hand up to his skull. Her fingers started to softly draw little circles on his cranium and upper neck, wanting to massage his nightmares away.

A soft moan escaped his mouth and he calmed visibly. His laboured breathing became steadier and the intensity of the tremors in his body decreased rapidly. Encouraged by his response to her actions, Sara became bolder. She leaned her face close to his left ear and started to whisper. "Michael, shhhhhht, Michael, it's ok." Her lips softly brushed against his ear shell "Shhhhhhht. It's ok baby, it's gonna be okay."

She kissed his temple softly and touched her forehead against the side of his. The intimate moment was broken by Lincoln's urgent whisper. "Sara. It's not stopping."

Her head felt like it had been filled with rocks and lifting it seemed to suck out all of her energy, but as soon as she saw the blood escape from the ragged flesh of his elbow, she cursed herself for her own unprofessional weakness. The first rule they'd taught her in medicine school was to 'always stay objective and focused on the task', to never get emotionally involved.

Her lips tingled as a brief memory of a moving train and sweet kisses flashed through her mind. God, this man seemed to have the power to make her break all the rules.

In a synchronised move, they switched positions. Lincoln slid towards the head of the bed and grabbed his brother's uninjured arm and hand. "Mikey" he croaked "It's me, we're here buddy. It's gonna be ok".

Meanwhile Sara had focussed her full attention on tending the wound on his arm. She frowned in frustration and angry tears threatened to fall. Normally this particular accident couldn't have caused such a carnage to his flesh. But his skin had turned so thin and frail by malnutrition that it seemed like a chainsaw had done a number on his elbow. She felt like her eyes would pop out of their sockets from the pressure of her tears. She mentally scolded herself. _NO, Stay focussed!_

Minutes later she'd just finished doing her job on his elbow, when suddenly his body started to shake again. With a loud groan his eyes and body sprung alive and he scrambled to the head of the bed like a frightened animal.

This was it. The reunion they all had been waiting for. After a momenta feeling of dread started to fill Sara's belly. Something was not right. There were no bells ringing, no sounds of joy, no heartfelt embraces or kisses of love. No. Something was not right. In fact, something was very, very wrong!

The silence in the room was deafening. The three figures seemed frozen in time and space. Two were holding up their breath. Eyes impossibly wide and fixed on one corner of the bed. The third one was cowered away as far as the bed would let him. His back plastered to the headboard, as if he was trying to crawl inside the wood, and his bent legs pulled protectively against his chest. His forehead wrinkled up in disarray while his jaded eyes slowly switched between the two other occupants of the bed.

Sara wanted to die right that minute. The picture of this broken man in front of her would be tattooed for ever on her brain. She'd never seen him so vulnerable. The way she'd found him in the S.H.U before she'd sent him to J-cat seemed like peanuts today.

His mouth was slightly agape and his bloodshot eyes were full of confusion and despair. She saw the wheels in is head turning to comprehend the scene in front of him. Suddenly the pupils of his eyes widened and his chin started to tremble. He caught his lower-lip between his teeth to stop the quivering. A futile attempt at best. His eyes started to glaze over as the quiver started to enfold his whole body.

She knew it was coming but she still wasn't prepared for the heartbreaking whimper that left his throat before his tears began to fall. In a matter of seconds he was crying uncontrollably. Heavy tears fell from his eyes and mingled with the dried blood and dirt on his face. He brought his two hands up to cover his face and wept on.

Lincoln stretched out his arm. But the minute his hand made contact with his brother's shoulder, Michael flinched away forcefully and started to sob even harder, if possible.

Lincoln pulled back his hand in surrender. "Wow there. Michael, it's just me, Lincoln."

Silence.

"Mike"

Silence.

Lincoln's hand started to approach Michael again. And then she heard his voice again for the second time in over five months. But the deep, husky tone she remembered was replaced by a strangled, stuttering, high-pitched sound. "Don't" His sobs grew louder "Touch me"…"Please"

They were transfixed in the same position for over twenty minutes. The only sound that of Michael's violent sobs which only seemed to grow with every passing minute. Sara was utterly perplexed that such a weak body could keep on crying like that.

She felt devastatingly hopeless and wholly inadequate in those minutes and she saw the same feelings reflected on Lincoln's face.

After what had seemed like hours, Michael's body finally seemed to quiet down. His sobs turned into uncontrolled hiccups and snivels of his nose.

Moments later he shifted his legs to an Indian sit and he let his hands drop from his face into his lap.

Sara cringed at the sight of his irritated red face. His nose and eyes almost swollen shut by their latest excessive exertion. That, just got to hurt!

His eyes were lowered to his lap where he was slightly fidgeting with his fingers.

Minutes ticked away, and both Lincoln and Sara seemed afraid to shatter the heavy silence.

Eventually Michael broke it for them. "How?" he asked in a broken whisper.

She was confused for a minute. How what? But she noticed that Linc seemed to understand him immediately. She felt a pang of jealousy shoot through her body for their unique brotherly bond, a bond from which she'd always be secluded. "We brought in Jane and dad's men the minute you went into Sona. It took us five months to come up with a waterproof plan, and yesterday we finally set it in motion."

After that the silence seemed to stretch on again for a long time. She observed his beaten body and numb state of mind. And suddenly the quietness started to make her nervous. She couldn't sit still anymore, she had to do something.

She raised herself from the bed and softly spoke "Michael?" He didn't respond, "Michael" she tried again without any results.

"Uh,…I still have to dress a lot of your wounds, before they get infected." She halted when she still saw no reaction "but maybe it would be better if you'd shower first to get all the dirt off."

She lowered her head in defeat "uh, I will leave a change of clothes in the bathroom and go make you some breakfast." The last part was said in a rush as she couldn't seem to flee the room in more of a hurry. He had totally ignored her and had not even acknowledged her when she'd spoken. It felt like a stab in her heart.

Michael's injuries had frightened her but the way he'd disregarded her just now, without blinking, made her scared on a whole new level.

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She was staring at the sea through the open French window in their living room. Normally the hypnotic sound of the waves that broke against the shore had a soothing effect on her, but today, that was not the case. Her troubled eyes travelled over the vast surface restlessly and she was gnawing at her right thumb's nail without mercy.

She knew she was on the verge of breaking down. In just under eight months she'd bound her heart and soul to this man definitively. She would only ever be whole again with him by her side. And now, that prospect seemed to be slipping through her fingers faster than a boat sailing of into the sunset. God, had it only been eight months, It seemed like a lifetime.

Suddenly the old plumbing system in the house piped to life, indicating that someone was using the shower. In a perfect world, she now would be blushing profusely, thinking about the water droplets that were running down his naked chest to places beyond. She would be imagining how her tongue was going to replace those droplets later that evening in her first exploration of that luscious body. Lincoln would take one look at her flushed cheeks and would fully take advantage of it to make her squirm with all his obscene suggestions.

In a perfect world, she wouldn't be thinking about how Michael would find the strength to stand up straight in the shower with that morbidly anorexic body of his. And the horrible way the scolding water would certainly irritate his already inflamed tender skin, would be the last thing on her mind.

Lincoln had come down the stairs and was now standing next to her. For long minutes they watched the ocean in silence together. Each contemplating the events of the last few hours and months. She felt lost in her own mind, trapped by feelings of self-reproach and insecurity. She was suffocating in her own sorrow, but suddenly a strong but gentle hand brought her back to the present. Lincoln had softly pried her right hand down from her mouth, effectively stopping her nervous assault on her thumb. Their hands were now joined between their bodies. They still were looking outside, neither one wanting to brake the connection with the sea just yet. She squeezed his hand gently to show him how grateful she was for his support. And he responded by shifting their hands so their fingers could weave together.

"I helped him in the shower, and told him to take his time**."**

"And?" She asked, not able to mask the hope in her voice.

"And what?" He shrugged.

"Lincoln" She shot back angrily while turning her gaze on him.

"And what Sara? What do you need me to tell you?" His voice raised with each question. "That it's gonna be alright? That all will be forgotten after that goddamn shower." Her chin started to tremble but he didn't notice "That the nightmare of the last hour was just that…only a nightmare? You saw it for yourself, so why the hell do you need me to repeat it."

He puffed his words out heatedly "For fuck's sake Sara, he only wanted to come out of the bed if I promised to stay 10 feet away from him. Is that what you wanted to know?" The last word was cut of abruptly when he noticed her shaken form in front of him. A silent tear was coursing down her cheek. He cursed himself. _God, how stupid was he_? He pulled her to his chest and enveloped her in a big bear hug. "God, I'm so sorry. Sara, please. Don't cry. Please"

She relaxed against his chest immediately. She was sensible enough to know he hadn't meant to react that way. They both were just so drained.

They stayed that way for a couple of minutes before she entangled herself from his embrace. "I promised him a change of clothes" he nodded softly, and with that she left the room.

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He was standing under the warm stream of the shower. His palms were placed flat against the tiled wall while his head leaned against it. He didn't move, didn't scrub, just stood there. He should feel scared. Naked, vulnerable and alone in a strange room. He should feel pain, from all the cuts and bruises he'd sustained. But he felt nothing. Nothing but dark numbness.

His dulled eyes were transfixed on the sinkhole and running water between his feet. The once clear liquid was stained by dirt, blood and the stench of him. With apathy he observed how the dirty water turned into a little whirlpool before it disappeared into the hole forever, never to be seen again. And in that moment, he wished for nothing more than his body to be dissolved into the water and be carried away to the refuge of nothingness.

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Sara was slowly walking towards her bedroom to get the change of clothes for Michael. Her mind flashed back to that day, one month ago, when she'd gotten them.

She had been experiencing the worst day ever. Lincoln had left town early with Jane to meet up with some guy who'd help them with the rescue.

Normally just one or all of them went away to meetings like that. But this time it would have been a dangerous encounter. Jane had offered to go alone, but Lincoln would have none of it.

Sara still remembered his fierce objection to Jane going alone, because that was the day she'd first noticed that Lincoln's feelings towards Jane were maybe more than just friendly. She'd been glad for him, he deserved someone special, and Jane certainly was. But that had changed nothing about the fact that they'd left her all alone for the first time.

She had been going out of her mind in the quiet house. She'd cleaned, done the laundry and the dishes like the dutiful housewife, she almost never was. After she'd fluffed up the sofa's pillows for the sixteenth time that day, she'd run out of the house. She'd reckoned it was either escaping to town for a couple of hours to get her mind off things, or fluffing up those pillows for the seventeenth time after which she'd voluntary would have placed a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

In town, she'd strolled around the little shops in search of some new t-shirts. Suddenly her eyes had fallen on a striking dark green man's sweater. She'd stood in front of the show window for what had felt like an hour, imagining how he would look in it. How the soft fabric of the jumper would caress and hug his muscular chest, and how his emerald eyes would look even more strikingly in combination with this piece of clothing. She'd blamed it on a moment of insanity when she'd stepped into the shop.

Later that evening, Lincoln had found her sobbing and blubbering like an idiot while sitting on the floor in the middle of their dark living room. He had instantly been on full alert, crouching in front of her and franticly looking for any signs of physically harm. But his mind had eased up and he'd left out a quiet chuckle when his eyes had fully scanned the scene in front of him.

Red puffy-eyed Sara had been surrounded by piles of men's clothes. Heaps of long jeans, short khaki pants, T-shirts, long-sleeved shirts, socks, briefs, even shoes had been built around her, like an impenetrable castle. She'd had been clutching a dark green men's sweater which had effectively been turned into a handkerchief.

He'd pushed away one pile and joined her in her castle. He'd taken her in his big strong arms and had whispered "he wears boxers, not briefs," which had sent her into another fit of hysterical sobs.

She smiled a little in remembrance of that night. It had turned out to be one of the most wonderful evenings in their time here. After the sobs had stopped they had fetched some pillows, blankets and ice cream and they'd put up camp inside her 'castle'. They'd talked about Michael all night long, only happy memories. And when she'd woken up in the morning, Lincoln spooned behind her in a protective manner and surrounded by wrinkled new clothes she'd felt a little peace for the first time since months.

From then on those clothes had been hanging on 'his' side of her closet, awaiting his return almost as eager as she.

She walked passed the bathroom and stopped dead in her tracks. The door was not completely closed, and if she leaned in a little to the right she'd see his form in the shower. She debated with herself to give him some privacy but in the end she couldn't help herself and started to stare. The back of his body was in full view. She reckoned he'd left open the shower-curtain on purpose to avoid feeling claustrophobic.

She started to get entranced by the body-art she'd missed so much but suddenly her eyes fell on something. Was that a bite mark on his neck? She leaned in as close as she could without disrupting the door. Why hadn't she noticed that before.

She quickly started to scan his body for other marks and then her heart just stopped. She clasped her hand over her mouth to prevent the whimper from escaping. She started to shake her head from side to side in denial. "No" She whimpered …. "No". She backed away and stumbled to her bedroom, where she crashed down on her hands and knees just in time for her to started vomiting up her breakfast.

She retched violently for over a minute, tears streaming down her face from both the exertion and the emotion. When nothing was left in her stomach she still gagged up bile and dry-heaved. She just couldn't stop. Images of his bottom, marred with handprint-shaped bruises on each side of it, and the trail of ripped and bloodied flesh disappearing between his butt cheeks, flashed through her head. She knew that this moment would forever be marked as the loss of her last shred of innocence.

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Should I continue, let me know!!!


	4. Ignorance is bliss Part One

Hiya peeps,

Here is chapter four for you. This will be the last chapter I'll post here. Since you're not bothering on reviewing, I'll not bother to post here. And babes, that's so NOT meant as a threat or something. It only means that you're not really 'in' to this story, and I can totally understand that. NO BIGGIE. But I have a very busy life, so I'll stick to the sites where people actually read and enjoy my writings.

There was this one girl who left a review, but I had to repost my story, cause the site wouldn't let me add a new chapter, so I kinda had to delete that review. To that girl: I know you were interested in 'Waiting for absolution', just email me and I'll send you the next chapters!!!!

Babaaaai

X Mikey

ps: Okay kiddies, brace yourselves, cause it's gonna get UG-LY!

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Sara's eyes were fixed, her movements were frantic but efficient, her mind focused on one thing and one thing only: destroying the evidence. Five minutes had passed since she'd discovered the bite mark on his neck, four minutes and fifty seconds since her world had come crashing down.

Two minutes ago she'd stopped retching her heart out, and for the next minute and a half she'd wanted nothing more than to start vomiting again. Throwing up meant focusing on getting her food out of her stomach without chocking, throwing up meant concentrating on not slipping in her own puke, throwing up meant banning all other thoughts from her mind except for those concerning her own vomit. Throwing up meant ignorance, throwing up meant bliss, because the second she'd stopped hurling, her soul had been attacked by the most gruesome feelings. Suffocating guilt and morbid revulsion had enveloped her, paralyzing her whole body.

He had been raped! Her sweet, gentle Michael had been violated in the most atrocious way possible. Those filthy beasts had put their rough hands on him and had torn him to pieces, ripping her only chance at salvation to shreds in the process.

Her head had been bombarded with an overload of stimuli. Horrendous things, like the blood of the rape victims in Fox River, the smell of semen on her lab coat after she'd treated them, the sight of young men who'd crashed too early and had taken their own life, the dulled eyes of those fragile boys she couldn't save. Seemingly insignificant observations had mixed in her mental turmoil. The sound of Lincoln downstairs; the colour of her body's excretion pooled next to her, the running water further down the hall. The multitude of thoughts had attacked her brain with the speed of light, causing a headache to begin instantly, and for a minute she'd wondered if this was what it felt like to have low latent inhibition.

She'd been so out of control, both dazed and on edge by the chaotic whirlwind inside her head. But it all had stopped by one sound coming from the bathroom, the sound of silence, the sound of _no _running water in the shower. The prospect of Michael finding her in this position had cleared up her mind like nothing could, propelling her towards the closet.

Now, thirty seconds later, she was frantically scrubbing away the filth she'd left behind on the floor with the first piece of clothing she'd come across. He could not find her here like that. Michael was too smart, too clever. He would take one look at the scene in front of him and he would comprehend what had just happened, and she wasn't ready for that.

She doubted there was any time, ever, to be ready for this, but she just was too exhausted to have this confrontation with him now. She couldn't yet make contact with his beautiful eyes and see all the accusation and blame in them. She just couldn't. All her life she'd failed people; her mother had died because she wasn't a good daughter, her daddy she'd driven away by her rebellious nature, she'd betrayed her surrogate father by helping eight criminals escape from his prison, and she failed Lincoln by taking away his brother.

She knew she was in a downward spiral, exaggerating the bad and ignoring the good. She wasn't thinking straight in this stage of self-destruct, but she couldn't help it, because all she saw was the corpse of Bill Kim, followed by Michael on his knees taking the blame. She had been the catalyst of it all, and surely he would hold her responsible for the nightmare of Sona. How could he not?

Her vision blurred and she bit the inside of her cheek to will away her tears, she was fooling herself. To punish herself for her sins, she knew. She had lost this man five months ago, lost their love, lost their future together. And though she already knew it, she wasn't quite ready to see that truth reflected in his eyes.

She disposed the grimy T-shirt, sprayed some deodorant to cover up the sour stench, and headed to the door. Stopping dead in her tracks, his footsteps were resonating in the hallway, he was coming her way. _Oh god, oh god!_ Sweat started to develop on her forehead. She looked around the room frenziedly for another way out. _Oh God!_ There wasn't! Glimmers of red shoes and tin men flashed through her head, and in a moment of insanity she cursed 'The wizard of Oz' for making her believe escaping from reality was so easy.

Her blood froze over, he was almost there. She quickly wiped her mouth and readjusted her hair in a faint attempt to cover up all proof of what had just happened. She steeled herself for what she was about to do. She was going to look him in the eyes, ignore the hate she saw them and lie to him, like she'd never seen a thing, lie to him like it was all just a nightmare and nobody had lain a finger on him.

Ignorance was bliss all right!

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His body froze in the door frame and her jaw dropped a little. A feeling of pure admiration struck her body hard. She felt the hairs on her arms raise and her nipples harden as a feeling akin to lust shot through her belly. Her remorseful mind was already beaten down, but her body didn't seem convinced so easily. She was totally mesmerized by his appearance. The jeans and green sweater fell loosely around his underfed form, but she'd never been more awestruck by his beauty. God, even after a five month stare down with death, this man looked amazing.

His eyes were staring at the ground shyly and she couldn't have been more glad for that. She just wanted one moment longer to pretend everything was going to be all right. As it turned out, he didn't even have to look into her eyes for her denial to be squashed. They were standing only six feet from each other but it felt like an ocean to her, vast and insurmountable.

She cleared her throat "I have t-to uh…have to take a look at your injuries." Why did she sound so insecure? This was medicine, her turf, her safe haven. "And I have to give you another unit of the alimental solution. So your healing process can work at full rate." That's more like it, she almost sounded professional.

He nodded his head softly and started walking to the bed. It was almost comical to see how he shied away from her presence, going to the bed in a wide bow around her, and consciously never turning his back on her. But comical as it may seem, it broke her heart and she had to bite her cheek again to keep from crying. This tall man's self esteem was so damaged he was even intimidated by her. Or maybe he just wanted to distance himself from her, distance himself from the person who'd taken away the last shred of his purity. Maybe she disgusted him so much he couldn't stand to be so close to her.

She walked towards the bed very slowly, wanting to give him, and herself, all the time to adjust to their physical closeness. She gathered her medical kit leisurely and sank next to him on the bed. She noted how his eyes shifted restlessly from side to side, and how his left index finger was silently tapping a beat on his left thigh. A nervous habit she used to think was so adorable, but which now only managed to disturb her.

His inner battle seemed similar to the one she'd had minutes ago. Fight or flight? Fight or flight! The reality of the situation seemed to cripple her. He saw her as a threat. He was scared of her, like he'd been scared of those monsters in Sona!

Shaking her head a little she refocused her attention. "Michael," she said softly "I need you to take off your clothes, so I can take a look at the wounds." She saw his fight-flight response kick up a notch or two. "Michael" she whispered again "Please, I'm not gonna hurt you, I just want to take care of you." Maybe she'd gotten through to him, or maybe she'd just sounded so desperate, she didn't really give a damn why, but she felt like she'd won the first of many battles to come when she saw him relax a bit.

He reluctantly started to undress himself, wincing a little when he pulled the sweater over his head. Surely his sore ribs were protesting. She leaned in slowly and gently touched his right wrist. He flinched but didn't pull away. _Victory number two for me_, she thought grimly.

"You are severely underfed, Michael. So, I'm gonna put in an IV and start a nourish treatment. You have to gain at least twenty pounds to feel strong and healthy again."

She was trying to give him an explanation for the pain she knew she would inflict on him when entering the syringe in his skin. "It will take a while before your stomach will be ready again to digest large amounts of real food, so take it slow and don't feel scared when you have to vomit a couple of times." She was speaking in a low murmur, soothing him by giving validated reasons for every possible painful outcome.

Next she focussed her attention on disinfecting and dressing all his upper chest wounds. She bit her tongue, when she came across the bite mark on his shoulder. Her fingers stilled two inches from his flesh and she wanted nothing more than to press gentle kisses to the inflamed skin, and rid his mind of every filthy memory. He seemed to notice her hesitation and started to withdraw, but she quickly intervened by pressing a cotton drenched with antiseptic liquid on the wound. He winced audibly. She didn't make the mistake of faltering twice, not even when she discovered another set of teeth marks on his lower back.

Dressing the big laceration just above his groin had been torture. They still hadn't made full eye contact but she'd noticed the tears shimmering in his eyes, and she knew for certain, they weren't caused by the physical pain of the disinfection. For a moment she cursed every man on earth. They all possessed such a great physical weapon, an organ that could be the cause of so many good things like love, desire, and the beginning of new life. But which was used too many times to cause havoc and destroy innocent lives. Flashes of the many female rape victims she examined while abroad with the DWB coursed through her mind, and she had to bite her cheek again for the third time that morning.

Recalling those memories made her a little sloppy and she accidentally slipped a finger underneath the waistband of his boxers. After which he scooted away immediately.

"What? Michael? What is it?" she urged with concern. "Did I hurt you?"

"Uh, no… No you didn't" his beautiful voice still sounded strange to her due to the sparse time it had been used in the last couple of months. "It's just… I have this one cut on my thigh here, and my left knee feels a little stiff but other than that it's fine…" He turned to look her straight in the eyes and mustered "I'm fine."

He had totally taken her off guard by locking eyes with her. She knew she should be angry because it was all part of his plan to redirect her attention. He was lying again. Even in the direst of situations, he was lying to her, using those emerald treasures again to manipulate her. He knew she wouldn't have the power to resist them and he'd used that knowledge without mercy. But not even the slightest trace of anger couldn be formed as he quickly lowered his eyes back to his lap in a vulnerable gesture of obedience. She tried to picture the wound she'd seen on him in the shower. It took a lot of self-control not to start retching again but, she managed to look at it objectively. It had been bruised and bloodied, but the colour and shape of it, suggested it had been inflicted a while back. She found a little peace in the fact that she couldn't contribute much to its healing process anymore.

She beheld him again and noticed that he seemed to have shrunk a little bit more. His eyes were still lowered to his lap and his shoulders hunched over in a protective manner. She would give him this round. She vowed to herself she would give him time. He would tell her when he was ready!

"Okay."

His head shot up, he clearly didn't expect her to give in so easily. She quickly crouched in front of him and started to dress the cut on his thigh. He stayed on edge, suspicious by her submissive behaviour. And suddenly it all turned very awkward. She felt his eyes on her face, she felt him searching for any signs of deceit, daring her to call her bluff. She started to shake a little while she desperately tried to recover from his sharp gaze. So she launched into telling him what exactly had taken place to rescue him.

She told him swiftly about Jane and her men; about going over every possible way to get into Sona, and finding none. About contacting and working together with thieves and crooked prison guards, all of whom were easily corrupted by money. About using an excessive amount of cash to bribe those inside men into getting him outside those dirty walls, money provided by the large saving account the late Aldo Burrows had sat up for his sons many years ago. Aabout the endless waiting for the right opportunity to come.

She talked about how they were all waiting for something to go wrong inside those prison walls, something that would start a disturbance, something that would cause chaos and could lead the attention for those bribed men and their plan. She told him about the evening, yesterday evening, when they'd gotten the call that something had gone down that had started a major riot with many casualties. And about how the men had easily slipped his unconscious body into the pile of corpses, pulled him out of it just before he would be incinerated like the rest of them.

After her ramble had ended, she realised she could have just saved herself all the trouble and better had been branded a big fat Liar- sign on her head. She had been too fierce in her explanation, disrupting the previous slow and delicate pace with her rambled words.

She looked up timidly, but she did not expect to see Michael so dazed and out of it. His eyes glazed over while they were fixed on a spot above her right shoulder. She suddenly saw his pupils dilate as his hands grip the bed sheets on either side of his body.

Oh, this was not good.

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_He had been assaulted six times since his drop into this hell hole. Six brutal attacks on his body deprived of any form of humanity. After the first three, he learned to adjust a little, if you could call it that. He learned to stay put and not flee at the first signs of peril. He took away their chase and learned to be as submissive as he could be. By zoning out, he willed his weakening body to relax during those most horrid moments, resulting in a little less discomfort and pain._

_The last time he hadn't even cried. He'd just let a fog envelop his mind resulting in a quiet stupor. This was something he'd learned to control as a kid when the attack of the unrestrained stream of stimuli became too much. He'd often cursed his LLI, but sometimes it could be a gift from heaven. He had been tossed and turned like a ragged doll between his five attackers, but to his own satisfaction he hadn't felt much. And he hadn't cried! That alone was enough to restore a little of his long lost self-worth. He felt like he'd had a small victory over his violators, and that made him smile for the first time since he'd been captured. _

_Five days after the last attack he'd been living on cloud nine. His body had seemingly withstood the last invasion relatively well. He'd meticulously studied the time and place of every vicious turn, so he could prepare himself for the next onslaught on his body. And so he'd calculated his next harassment wouldn't come until a good two weeks later. He actually cherished the fact that he was one of the 'lucky ones'. Many of the young boys, some of them who weren't even twenty years old, had to endure that horror every day. They would be thrown into the foulness that was Sona, mostly for insignificant crimes in comparison to some of the perverted beasts in there. Scared and confused, they would be chosen as someone's bitch on day one, to stay that way till death made them part. He'd seen many 'Seths' in this place, all pleading at him, at anyone for help, all being ignored until they couldn't take it anymore and cracked. Some had stabbed a too easy to acquire shank in their own throats, while others weren't careful anymore and wronged their own master, receiving his deadly wrath as a result. _

_Yes, he thanked what ever forces that were responsible for him not being picked out that first day. It had to be his tattoo he theorised. It had created a deceitful image of toughness in those few days. And he couldn't have been more glad about his body art than in those deciding moments._

_His little surge into happiness that day was however rudely broken by the sight in front of him. The rabid dogs were advancing on him from every corner and he couldn't understand why. His body was paralyzed for a moment, and his mind started screaming. No, no, no, no, no, NO! This is not right! It's not the time! It's not my turn!_

_His carefully tamed instinct of running away was back with a vengeance as he started to stride forcefully towards the crowded area of the yard. They were gaining on him, and before he knew it, someone had grabbed him from behind and was dragging him towards the cell block. _

_He stopped walking, throwing his weight into the battle, and let his feet drag along the ground behind him. A second attacker soon joined the first, so between the two of them they almost carried him away. He rapidly found himself on the ground of one of those filthy cells, surrounded by his five devils. _

_The leader approached him, while one of the pack hauled him upright by twisting his arm until he was resting on his knees in front of the biggest man. Michael's head was pulled back painfully by a firm grip on his lengthened curly hair. He had no choice but to look his executioner in the eyes. He was shocked to tears by what he saw. There was something unearthly malicious in the monster's face. Something so nasty, it felt like this man's gaze alone had the power to rape him to shreds. _

_The man in front of him leaned closer: "So, pretty boy, you think you've won, eh?" Michael struggled against his bonds to no avail, and started to softly nod his head no._

"_Please" was all he could muster before his throat closed up in fear. _

"_You think you've earned the right not to cry, not to feel, when I'm taking you?" he almost sped in his victim's face. _

_Michael felt like he would explode from the pressure. All his muscles, tendons, skin, everything felt tight, too tight, like he would rip open at any second now. He cursed himself for his cockiness earlier, he'd felt too damn confident and now he'd pay for it, dearly. "No, No." He whimpered "I'm sorry. Please?"_

_The Panamanian laughed. A throaty, nasty laugh: "Too Little, too late."_

"_Now you're gonna pay." The thick accent only seemed to make that threat more appalling._

_His attacker started to lower his pants in front of Michael and he braised himself to be hurled onto the bunk, but that wasn't happening. His eyes widened in horror when he finally understood what was to come._

_No, no! A sob escaped his throat "NO, please?" _

_But all he could hear before his vision was obscured by the fleshy shaft of his foe, was that same vile and throaty laugh, now made husky with anticipation._

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to be continued 


	5. Ignorance is bliss  part two

Okay, this chapter is wholey dedicated to Jemiul, Matteic, and filou81 who found the time to come out of lurker-mode and post me a review to tell me I'm not doing this for nothing.

A very special thank you to Sanskrit, who left me 4 reviews! FOUR!!!! You rock girl...euh...or boy...(I really don't know)! You write stories yourself so I guess you know how motivating those reviews can be! I had already given up on this site but you convinced me to post WFA further on fanfiction net. So thanks soooooooo much!

Okay kiddies, It gets really graphic in this chapter, and not the good kinda Misa graphic we all want so much (You'll have to wait another ten or so chapters for that!). This is definitely rated M, so please don't read it if you can't stand RAPE and Michael in the same context!!!!! I don't want to get kicked of this site because people would complain about it!

But please do note that this story is a MISA story and it will be about healing and loving and all the sweet things we love about that couple. But they are in a dire angsty place right now, and that will stay that way for another 5 or so chapters! So please stick with me!!

Enjoy! X Mikey

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**Chapter 5: Ignorance is bliss part two**

_Michael's body started to shake hysterically. The tremor was so intense he lost all power over his movements and started to crash sideways. He would have hit the ground violently, but a vicious haul on the twisted arm behind his back kept him upright on his knees. A yelp of pain escaped his mouth and more tears started to leak from his eyes. _

"_No…please….no." He pleaded desperately. _

_Subconsciously he knew that his begging would only fuel their excitement but he couldn't wile his body to stop. He noted with growing devastation how his voice had taken over without his consent, whimpering and moaning like a wounded animal. _

_Bile rose in his mouth when the distance between his face and the thick penis decreased and unbearable pain shot up his trapped arm when he leaned his body backwards as much as he could. It felt like the man behind him was ripping out his upper limb, but he welcomed the sensation. He would tear it off himself if that would help him escape the upcoming atrocity. _

_He started to shake his head from side to side and he pressed his lips together so tight they turned white. _

"_Come on little puta, suck!" His opponent chuckled with bemusement at Michael's vain escape attempt. _

_He pressed his back and head into the body behind him like he wanted nothing more than to crawl into it, but a minute later he was pushed forward forcefully into the arms of his attacker. The moist tip of this man's cock made contact with his cheek and he shuddered violently when he felt the precum smear against his face. _

_His tears were running freely now and he chocked one last time "Please?"_

_One last prayer for absolution to a god that didn't exist in this hellhole. _

_One last request for a small sign of humanity in these savage beasts. _

_One last cry for help to the prison's officers he knew would turn their head and walk away; to Mahone and Bellick he knew lay rotten and forgotten six feet under the ground; to his family he knew who'd tried to save him but abandoned him altogether like they'd done all his life._

"_I said SUCK, cunt" _

_All laughter had vanished from his fiend's voice and Michael noted with crippling defeat that this was it, there was no turning back. The guy in front of him grabbed the back of his head violently and pushed it forward. The sickening smell of semen and urine entered Michael's nostrils and it made him gag a little. But the hand behind his head kept on pushing. _

_With a last feeble attempt of defence he shut his eyes tight and flexed the muscles of his neck into a backwards movement, but he stopped all resistance when he felt the man behind him press a sharp, rusty shank into the soft skin of his belly. _

_He wasn't ready to die today, was he? He wasn't ready to give up on that last shred of faith, right? _

_After being assaulted several times and after witnessing all the terrors of Sona, Michael had been convinced he'd lost all of his innocence. But being in this dreadful predicament he recognised with horror he had a whole lot left to lose, because nothing in the world could have prepared his naïve soul for this moment._

_The minute his lips enveloped the large cock his being was assaulted by a feeling of immense shame. He had never felt more humiliated than in this moment. Weak, disgusting and sucking a man's dick._

_He felt his stomach turn when the salty sensation hit his taste buds and he swallowed hard to keep himself from vomiting. _

_He shifted his tongue a little to make room for the rigid member, and this caused a groan to escape from his rapist's mouth. He stilled after this, but the hand at the back of his head soon forced him into bobbing his head from front to back. Angry tears blurred his vision. He was willingly subjecting to their evilness and it caused his heart and his spirit to be raped much more violently than this oral assault ever could. He would never be able to forgive himself for doing this without a fight. _

"_Mmmmmm, pretty, that's more like it!" grunted the beast in front of him but his sultry voice was drowned out by the sickening sound of their actions. The sucking noise of his wet swollen lips on the stiff flesh in his mouth was driving him insane and would surely hunt him for the rest of his life. _

_Michael moaned brokenly when his attacker sped up and he could barely keep up with the fastened pace. Suddenly the rhythm became urgent and frantic and Michael's swollen eyes widened in horror when he realised what was to come. He felt the cock inside his mouth start to twitch and he tried to pull away, but the grip of the man was too fierce. Before he had time to react, he heard a loud groan of satisfaction as the man came hard, spurting semen in the back of his throat and over his chin. _

_This time he didn't try to hold back his physical reaction. Released from his dead grip he doubled over on the ground and started to vomit violently. His refuge however was short lived, because seconds later he was hauled upright by his hair again by another man, and he was dragged towards the bunk._

_His new attacker sat down on the bunk and dragged Michael between his legs. His movements were made ungraceful and jittery by anticipation. _

_Michael didn't even recognise his own frightened whimpers, "No…please…I can't do this anymore….please … I can't" before his head was pushed down in between the spread out legs. His helpless moans were obstructed from leaving his mouth by another poisonous cock entering between his lips. _

_He was on all fours in front of the man but soon all the energy left his body and he slumped against the man's left leg in total surrender. His attacker started to push and pull at his hair without mercy, thrusting his hips in Michael's face with bruising power. In comparison to the first time, this ordeal seemed more ruthless, if possible. Michael felt his throat constrict with every stroke of the slick flesh as his gag-reflex kicked in fiercely. _

_His mind was screaming hysterically "You are too big! You're going too deep!" but nothing more than small cries could leave his mouth. He chocked for air between every penetration and his skin prickled by the multitude of tears leaving his eyelids. _

_His stifled moans of pain and desperation were no competition for the rough carnal grunts of pleasure that left his opponent's mouth. "Oh, you feel so good, pretty!" "mmmmm, use those pretty lips on me." _

_Before long he had yet again to give in to another man's climax and spilled seed in his mouth. _

_When the third man grabbed his head he felt his hysteria and anxiety leave his body to be replaced by paralysing numbness, a state he was thankful for with every fibre of his being. He noted with detached apathy that they had pulled him back into the first position. Him resting on his knees in front of the new attacker while another man immobilised him from behind. His head was tilted backwards and through half closed murky eyes he looked up to his violator's face. _

_He didn't feel the thrusting notion of the guy's hips anymore, nor felt he the scrape of his teeth against the large member inside his mouth. He didn't feel anything anymore. The look of sick pleasure radiating from the guy's face and the sound of little grunts leaving his slack hanging mouth should have scared Michael to death. But it didn't register anymore. He felt numb. An infinitive black mass of nothingness was starting to enfold Michael's body and soul, and he was glad for it._

_With strange indifference he noted that his journey was about to end. Memories and pictures started to flash before his eyes while his gaze glazed over. Suddenly there was no sweaty pig in front of him and no rigid cock disappearing in him. The only thing he saw was the protective bosom of his mother pressed against his face when he couldn't sleep. It was replaced by the fierce and raging look on Lincoln's face when he was looking for the kid who'd dared hurt his little brother in school. Then Lincoln's anguished face morphed into one of pure satisfaction after he pummelled the bullies to the ground. _

_The flashes came faster. Piggy back rides on Lincoln's back, the soft skin of Sara's healing hands, the 'Christina rose' sailing of to places beyond…_

_Soon the happy memories were outweighed by the darker and horrid ones. The sight of his severed toes on the ground next to his bleeding foot, Lincoln strapped down to the chair, blue-tattooed tainted skin against the milky white lifeless flesh of Seth, Bob, Sara, and all the others. Vee's last breath before Lincoln's anguished scream,…_

_He didn't know how exactly his plan had become so jaded. So much damage was done, so many lives were lost. Things he never could have foreseen. Things for which he could never be forgiven. Things that would happen again if he got a second chance, because he would do it all over again to save his brother. _

_His goal had been reached and now the only thing keeping him going was that little shred of faith in absolution. He had fooled himself into thinking he would get out of this place sooner or later. But time was running out on his weakening body. They left him to rot away in this demonic place, and suddenly he couldn't be more grateful for this punishment, because it was all he ever deserved. _

_Nevertheless, he was weak, always had been, and he just couldn't withstand the evilness of Sona any longer. He couldn't do it anymore._

_A strange sense of calm fell over him and he slacked a bit while his attacker was still furiously pounding away on his body. He almost smiled as a plan started to form in his head. He would leave this earth doing what he did and loved best: planning. _

_They had destroyed almost every aspect of his being, but he wouldn't give him his last barrier. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction of owning his life, of toying with him, leaving him hanging between being dead or alive._

_He was still the one in charge of that and HE was still the one who got to decide when he was through with all of life's bullshit. _

_His eyes filled with determination and he straightened his back. He purposely let a strangled chuckle escaped his lips. His current rapist didn't notice anything but the leader had seen the shift in Michael's demeanour and was slowly approaching him. _

"_Anything funny, pretty?" He asked with a menacing voice meant to be threatening._

_But all Michael could do was broaden his smile in a very awkward movement. _

_He locked eyes with the leader, who was slightly taken aback by the power and determination radiating from his victim's eyes. Michael had never felt more confident in the past five months than in these last critical seconds. He winked at the leader in the most cocky gesture he could muster in his current position and then all hell broke loose._

_Blood spattered all over his face and the crunching sound of tearing flesh between his teeth filled his ears. He was half grunting, half laughing hysterically, while saliva mixed with blood dripped from his chin. He was sure he looked like a freaking rabid dog, but grabbing the man's naked hips and biting down hard, was the most exhilarating thing he had ever done._

_It wouldn't be long now, the blows would come, and it would be over soon. He felt totally at ease spitting out the large dismembered piece of his rapist's cock, and the sound of the bloodcurdling screams coming from said rapist felt like Beethoven's ninth symphony to his ears._

_In that moment, time seemed to stand still. He beheld the scene in front of him with lucid eyes and showed off his bloody teeth with a slow steady smile. The man in front of him was rolling on the floor in pain, his hands cupped between his legs while blood spurted out between his fingers. A sacrificial slaughtering of a goat wouldn't hold a candle to the massacre in front of him, and his smile widened. _

_The others of the pack were frozen in place by shock, and somewhere in the back of his mind he heard commotion coming from outside the dirty cell hole that was soon to be his coffin. _

_The surreal atmosphere was broken however by the furious scream of the leader. Michael saw them hurling their body towards him and he couldn't help but congratulate himself for another successful plan. "I'm sorry Linc" was the last whisper that left his mouth._

_He didn't scream or fight back, not even when the shank tore open his tender flesh from groin to navel. He just fell to the ground and curled up into a ball, waiting for the blackness to come. _

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"Michael?"

He heard her soft voice but couldn't quite see her yet.

"Michael?" There it was again, so soft.

Visions of beasts and dismembered penises left his mind, while the realisation settled in that he himself had set his rescue into motion. The bribed men had been waiting for a trigger moment to start the chaos and mayhem in Sona, and in his quest to end his own life he ironically had handed it to them on a plate.

"Michael, please talk to me?" Her delicate face slowly came into focus. She looked worried, exhausted but oh so beautiful, and he couldn't help but be mesmerized when she leaned in closer to gently stroke his cheek.

The same cheek that had been sticky with men's semen just over a day ago. He flinched away from her like she had just burned his skin. She shouldn't have to touch him. In fact, she shouldn't have to be near him at all. He was damaged goods, broken beyond repair and that was the last thing he wanted for this woman.

He saw the hurt look on her face and subconsciously he knew that she'd misinterpreted his actions. But he couldn't find the strength to explain it to her.

What was he to say anyway. That her gentle touch and soft skin was meant to be healing, but all it did was trigger memories of filthy monsters with bruising grips and rough fingertips. That being touched by nothing but vile men in those five months had contaminated his own soul to it's core and he was scared to death he would transport even the slightest bit of that horrid filth onto her.

No. He started to shake his head. She could never know. Ever!

He became anxious. She was too damn close. Her delicious flowery scent invaded his nostrils and it was so far removed from the stench of semen and men's sweat, it brought tears to his eyes.

She would find out, he knew, if she got any closer and looked into his eyes, she would know. He had to get rid of her so he could figure this situation out.

"Micha.." Her desperate plea was interrupted by his strong voice. "Don't!"

His harsh tone surprised her and she winced.

"Just… don't…ok?... don't!" His voice sounded confident but his heart broke into pieces.

"Leave me alone, ok. I'm really tired." He saw her eyes glaze over and he went in for the kill "I just need for you to leave me alone!"

A single tear slipped out and trickle down her cheek and he wanted nothing more than to wipe it away with his fingers. But he couldn't, he wouldn't, he had to be strong.

"Okay" She offered brokenly and scrambled to her feet. In less than a minute she had collected her medical equipment, had checked his IV and had fled the room without uttering another word.

His gaze was fixated on the closed door, where she had disappeared from his sight moments earlier. He'd hurt her, he knew. But he also had prevented her from finding out the truth and that was the only thing that counted. She could never find out. He would carry this burden alone. Ignorance would be bliss for her.

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Two doors down the hall, Sara locked the bathroom doors with trembling hands. She slid down against the wall and started to tremble furiously. She pulled up her legs against her chest and brought her quivering hand up to her mouth just in time to stifle the anguished cry. Heavy sobs racked her body for the first time since Michael had arrived, but she forbid any sounds from coming out between her lips by biting hard on her right hand.

She tasted the irony flavour of her own blood, but couldn't stop biting. He hated her! He hated her with all his being for what she had put him through with those beasts. He couldn't stand to be in the same room with her for more than half an hour. And he was right to do so.

Strangled whimpers escaped between her teeth and her hand, so she bit down harder.

He couldn't hear her so distraught. She would never let him see how much losing him hurt her. Her cowering nature told her to get the fuck out of there as fast as she could, to leave the only two things she cared about behind and never look back. She'd done that plenty of times.

But this time, she wouldn't fail anybody. She would stay and stand by his side. She would receive his hate and wrath with her head held up high, and with the little dignity she had left she would help him recover as best as she could from his Sona experience.

After he'd be healed, she'd pack her things and go. Then the brothers would finally be free to start that happy ending together.

The plan was formed, her mind was made up and her bruised heart was locked away.

But for now, she stayed huddled on the bathroom floor. She would be strong later, but for now, she just sobbed. Sobbed for Michael, sobbed for their loss.

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First Note: please understand that I don't have anything against gay men and the things they do. Everyone is entitled to his own sexual preferences and stuff. And I'm totally cool with that. The scene above is all about the horror of a vulnerable man being physically assaulted by other men! That's something entirely different!

Second Note: I won't beg you to review this time.

Third Note, 5 minutes after the second note: Ohhh, who the hell am I kidding, I'm sooooo gonna beg!

Pleeeeeeeaaasssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee review this chapter! I had a hard time writing it and I don't know if it's any good.


	6. To lie and to cheat

Okay peeps, this one is just scene setting, nothing really exciting going on in this chapter. But bare with me, I'm just prepping the stage for something big to happen in a couple of chapters. And as you probably already have noticed, I'm a real sucker for high descriptiveness of everything. I can't be brief and concise, really, I physically can't. That can have its advantages but mostly is just annoying and boring. So please tell me if it's bothering you, or if the pace of the story is too slow. If that's the case, I'll try to speed things up. I'll try, I said, don't know if I can make it work.

Again, a very big thank you to Sanskrit, Filou and Matteic. You guys **ROCK** for giving me 5 minutes of your time! Don't stop doing it, because it's greatly appreciated!

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**Chapter 6**** to lie and to cheat **

Sara stood in the doorway to her bedroom. The left side of her body and head was resting against the doorframe and her hands were tucked securely in the pockets of her hipster jeans. She watched Michael with tranquil eyes. His presence on the bed seemed to possess a hypnotic power that made her eyelids feel so heavy she had to fight to keep them open. He was sleeping … again … and she was watching ... again.

It had become a sacred ritual over the last two weeks. He would sleep like the dead. Sleep at night, sleep after breakfast, sleep in the afternoon. He would sleep in the dark of the night and sleep with the warm summer sun's rays on his face.

And she would watch from her rooted spot against the doorframe. She would watch for ten minutes or for two hours. Sometimes she would watch alone and sometimes Lincoln would be there right next to her.

In the past fortnight Michael had slept, like he would never wake up from it. It seemed to her he was making up for five months of sleep deprivation. She cringed a little as she thought about how much he probably hadn't slept in that godforsaken place. Always having to be on guard and watch his back. With a terror in his heart that wouldn't let him escape into the void of slumber.

She'd seen enough insomnia patients to understand the serious impact of that condition. It was crippling and unravelling at best to any human body and psyche, if exposed to it for too long.

Her face darkened when her mind wandered to Michael's case. What he'd been through had to be even worse … much graver than a series of random episodes of sleeplessness.

He had to have been exhausted, he had to have wanted nothing more than to lay down his worn out body and close his eyes, he had to have craved the ecstasy of surrendering to sleep. But she knew he hadn't let himself give into that sweet temptation. She knew he had fought his own mind and had stayed awake in a state of blurred awareness all the time. For his own survival he'd stayed awake…for five months.

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She swallowed hard and her once tranquil eyes were shifting restlessly. _NO!_ She scolded herself. _Sara, don't go there. NO!_ The trap of suffocating guilt was always present and several times a day Sara had to mentally fight herself to not submit to it.

_He's here isn't he? And he's sleeping!_ She debated with her troubled mind. And it was true. He was here and he had been sleeping a good seventeen hours every day. A twinkle in her eye appeared when she noted his protective foetal position of the first few days had long been replaced by the 'flat-on-his-back-limbs-spread-wide-open-all-over-the-place-you-can-scream-bloody-murder-two-inches-from-my-ear-and-I-still-won't-wake-up'-way his body was displayed in right this minute.

Such an exhibition of total unguarded and vulnerable surrender had to mean something, right? It surely had to mean he felt safe in the presence of Lincoln and her, or was she just kidding herself?

Her eyes travelled over his body and she couldn't stop the smile that was slowly spreading on her face. He looked good. More important than that, he looked healthy. The nutritional IV solutions combined with the slow integration of a carb and fibre rich diet had done wonders to his healing process. He'd gained a good 15 pounds over the last two weeks and his cuts and bruises were slowly starting to fade. His once gaunt and ashen skin was now alive and warm with a constant rosy glow.

She couldn't come up with a better description than that it all made him look so cosy and inviting and she had to physically restrain herself not to snuggle up close to him and relish in his warmth every time she saw him.

She reckoned he would regain most of his lost weight within the next three weeks, and his muscles mass would soon be restored the moment he started functioning in every day life again.

No, she wasn't in the least concerned about his physical healing. The state of his mental health, however, disturbed her a great deal more.

She was anxious to know what exactly had happened during his stay in Sona. She wanted to know how much this horrid place had mentally scarred him. Although she would rather just forget about the past few months she knew she had to find out the truth in order to help him recover from it. But she could do nothing more than guess, because Michael hadn't said a word about it and it seemed he wasn't planning on doing that anytime soon.

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At first he had been very distant. He slept, he ate, he showered, all in silence. The only moments she had heard his sweet voice was in her daily 'medical investigation' of his injuries. With a frustrated sigh she remembered how she almost wanted to strangle him a couple of times for being so stubbornly evasive of her questions.

Her "Who broke your finger, Michael" was easily dodged by his "How is LJ doing?". Her "This cut on your belly looks fresh. Were you in a fight before you got rescued? " was artfully countered by his "Is Jane coming back to Panama?"

She'd thought they were long passed the "This is the part where I don't answer you" days, and it frustrated her to no extent that he could so easily slip back into that masquerade of lies and strategic avoidance.

But she had promised to give him time, and that was what she was doing. It didn't, however, stop her from wanting to pull out her hair when confronted with another bout of his stubbornness.

After those first awkward days, the tension had eased up a little. The more he had realised there was no more impending danger in his life, the more he had opened up to them. They talked about insignificant things, small talk about the town, their house, the weather. Caught on a good day, he even allowed them to venture in on the more important stuff like his and Lincoln's life before Terrence Steadman, what Kellerman had done at Sara's trial.

But his lips were pressed tight together when it came to Sona, and every one of her attempts to initiate a conversation about it had been effectively squashed by his silence. And that, really wasn't worth it, she'd decided. She had been robbed of his beautiful voice for more than five months and now that she finally had him back she was rapidly becoming addicted to it. His silence hurt her more than any cold turkey withdrawal of morphine had ever done. So she had quickly decided she wouldn't give him any more reasons to be silent, so she had dropped the Sona-issue.

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A deep sigh left his mouth and he turned on his side with his back to the window to block the stream of light. It was the first sign he would wake up soon, she noticed with slight disappointment. It wasn't that she wasn't happy about that. No, she craved the few moments they got to spend together every day.

But this, this was her Michael.

With him laying on that bed looking so vulnerable, peaceful, and comfortable at the same time, she could pretend that everything was going to be alright. She could kid herself that his mental wounds were healing equally fast as his physical. She could make herself believe that once he woke up, his sleepy but sated eyes would immediately guide her back to the bed, into the welcoming arms of her lover, where she belonged.

Watching this unguarded Michael and pretending, was her dirty little secret. She didn't give a damn that it was slightly obsessive and stalkerish. Really, she couldn't care less that pretending like that wasn't what you call the healthiest way to handle things. No, all that mattered was that it gave her the strength she needed to get through the rest of the day.

Later on when he was awake, that, that would be the other Michael. The shy one, the aloof one.

Although they did talk and spend time together, his answers always stayed reserved and his quiet demeanour betrayed an emotional detachment that was so different from the overwhelming bond they had shared those days on the run, that her earlier make-believe was easily shattered into pieces.

Although he didn't shy away from her touch anymore and although he did even seem to enjoy her gentle caress. He had yet to touch her back himself, and that drove her to the edge of desperation.

They had always been big on touching each other. A gentle brush of the hand there, a forbidden whisper of skin meets skin here. She now knew it had all been part of his plan in the beginning, but later on it had become one of the most true and essential things in their relationship. She had pulled more strength out of one squeeze of his hands than out of all the reassuring words he, Linc, or Bruce had told her.

She swore she'd almost spontaneously combusted a few times with all the hand-porn they were doing on the run. She'd had her fair share of wild sex escapades in her junkie days, but those seemed like nun's activities next to the feelings Michael could evoke in her with just one touch of his hand. He had the power to make her blush and squirm and squeeze her thighs together, all with one electrifying touch. If he could do THAT to her with just one caress, she seriously had to stop thinking about the things he could do to her if they crossed that line.

------

She closed her eyes and berated herself. He was recovering from the most gruesome torment that was Sona and she couldn't fucking stop thinking about getting it on with him. What was wrong with her. Shame enveloped her whole being and after a fleeting last look at his slumbering face, she fled the room.

She breezed by a stunned Lincoln in the hallway and practically sprinted downstairs, to get away from that enthralling man in her bedroom. It wasn't until she gripped the brim of the kitchen sink tight and looked out of the window to the sea that she willed her fast beating heart to calm down.

She tried to temper her guilt a little. She wasn't at fault here. The truth was, she just missed him, her body missed him. In fact she missed her Michael with every fibre in her body and that scared the hell out of her.

She'd never missed anyone like this, not even her own mother after her death. Her cynical self mocked her naïve romantic heart, because the one thing she longed for with such mind numbing force was the one thing she might never get back.

She missed his gentle touches, his sweet breath on her face, she missed everything about her Michael, and there was nothing sexual about that, it was rather heartrending actually.

She'd prepared herself for angry and hateful glares from his eyes, and brutal but true accusations from his mouth. But she certainly hadn't expected his emotional detachment, and she didn't know how to react to it. Her mind and body were confused, and she couldn't help but think that the angry and hateful scenario would have been a lot easier to deal with.

---------------------------------------------------------------

"How are you holding up?" She heard his concerned voice from behind her, but didn't turn to look at him.

She lowered her head a little and rubbed her tired eyes. "I'm fine."

"Have you been crying?" At this, her head gave a swift turn towards him. "No!"

"You know, I don't cry all the time, Lincoln?" She hated how her voice sounded so defensive.

"Well, you could have fooled me." He countered nonchalantly.

Her eyes squinted a little and a dangerous gleam appeared in them. That was below the belt and they both knew it!

There was a tense silence before Lincoln exhaled loudly "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

He started to pace nervously between the kitchen table and the sink where she stood. "It's just… I hate this, Sara."

"What?" Deep down she already knew what he was about to say, but she wanted to hold on to her denial for just a little bit longer.

"This." He stopped his pacing to stand in front of her. "This. What's happening between you and me." She observed with growing defeat how he was wildly gesturing to emphasize his speech, a strong indicator that he meant business. Shit.

"This … is not fine. You don't talk to me anymore, you avoid me."

His soulful gaze locked with hers, and in that moment she cursed Aldo and Christina for blessing both their sons with such captivating eyes. There was no escaping those eyes. Shit.

"It's like you don't trust me. We're supposed to be into this together, Sara! We're supposed to stand by each other. But all you fucking do is run away from me whenever you get the chance."

He sounded angry now, and he had every right to be because she knew it was all true. She had been avoiding him.

"For Christ sake Sara, you creep in my bed every single night and bawl your eyes out. But when I wake up in the morning you're gone again for practically the rest of the day."

His baritone voice penetrated her bones and she shivered a little.

"How the fuck am I supposed to be okay with that!"

She looked at his face, really looked at it for the first time in fourteen days. Her gaze softened and she bit her lower lip gently. His eyes looked tired, with bluish sacks underneath his lids and his skin was pale and wrinkled. He seemed to have aged ten years in the last couple of days. That wasn't right was it, now that Michael was finally free, it shouldn't be like this.

Suddenly she inwardly laughed at the absurdity of their situation.

The second night after Michael's return, Lincoln had offered her his bedroom with the subtleness of a raging bull high on testosterone. His stance had been so manly and he had certainly thought he had left no room for discussion. But she'd laughed in his face, 'playing the damsel in distress' being the last thing on her mind.

His "you woman, weak, me man, strong"-like suggestion had been easily dismissed by her "Lincoln, I've been drowned, electrocuted and tortured. I've massacred my left arm with needles, shooting poison in my own body for over five years. I actually threw myself out of a two storey building onto the hood of car! Do you really think your masculine self has to save me from a bumpy couch?"

She remembered how he'd stood there, mouth opening and closing like a fish, wanting to say something but not finding the right words. He'd admitted defeat leaving the room with slouched shoulders and for a second, remembering his fear of being useless, she'd wanted to run after him, but she'd stayed put.

As it turned out she didn't need to feel guilty about wounding his male pride in that moment. She'd soon found out laying on that ratty old couch hadn't been her brightest idea. The first night in her new 'bed' had been horrific. She had felt exhausted, wired, scared, nervous, relieved, in love, and terrified, all at the same time and it had made her almost physically sick. All the guilt, and pretending, and self-loathing were eating away at her and she couldn't find the power to make it all go away and sleep.

After three hours of struggling with herself she'd sprung from the sofa, raced up the stairs to Lincoln's room and slid under his covers without warning. The minute her skin had made contact with the comforting sheets, which were warmed by his body heat, she'd burst out and cried her eyes out. It had taken Lincoln over an hour to calm her down, after which she finally drifted away in a dreamless sleep next to him.

It had been the same ever since. She would start out on the couch, only to end up crying herself to sleep in Lincoln's arms. They didn't talk. She just cried and he just held her. She always left him before he woke up, feeling revitalised for another day of pretence, but not wanting to be confronted about the weirdness of the situation.

She was actually surprised it had taken him this long to face her about it, but now it seemed her luck had run out.

"Sara?" His voice and face had softened too.

"I know it's hard on you, because I'm feeling it too. But your making it more difficult for the both of us."

"I…" He faltered with such an uncharacteristic vulnerability it brought a new set of tears to her eyes "I need you….and you need me. And we're in this together, whether you like it or not."

"I know you're hiding something from me?"

Shit.

"I can see it in your eyes."

Shit!

"You have to tell me Sara! From now on, you have to tell me everything! I demand it." His hands grabbed both of her upper arms as to shake her to a confession.

Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod

"Tell me!"

Her eyes were impossibly wide and her body was tense. She was quite sure she resembled a deer caught in headlights.

"Sara," He was actually shaking her now, his desperate voice both pleading and commanding "Tell me!"

"I swear to go…" "He was raped." His frustrated sigh had been abruptly cut off by her strangled whisper.

She saw the blood drain from his face and his fingers tightened painfully around her biceps.

"Wha … What did you just say?" his eyes were bulging out of their sockets and when she repeated her whisper she saw them fill with devastating terror and tears.

"No." he started to back away from her while shaking his head. "No!"

She felt like she'd travelled in time to that crucial moment she'd seen Michael in the shower, because Lincoln was copying her every move.

"Lincoln." She stepped forward urgently.

"No! You're wrong. You're wrong!" He shouted frantically while retreating further.

Deafening silence filled the room as they stood there frozen in place. Seconds ticked away annoyingly hard on the cheap kitchen clock.

"Am I interrupting something?"

Both Lincoln and Sara almost jumped out of their skin upon hearing Michael's quiet voice from the kitchen door.

Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod

Lincoln was shaking so hard with fear and anger, she almost expected him to put his fist through the kitchen wall. "I'm sorry… I have to… to do an errand in town." He managed to choke out while looking at the floor and with that he fled the house faster than the speed of light.

Michael's confused gaze shifted from Lincoln's disappearing form to her face, but she was already fleeing herself. "I'm…uh… I'm going to change your bed sheets."

And with that, she passed him in the most cowardly gesture ever to go up to her bedroom.

They both had done, what they seemed to do best: fleeing. Leaving a very confused and uncomfortable Michael behind in the kitchen.

* * *

Give me some of that delicious hand-porn, we all love so much, babies. Use those long slender wriggly fingers of yours and pretend the keyboard is Michael Scofield …or certain luscious parts of his fabulous anatomy.

That's right!!! Do your magic on him. Stroke hard with every letter you type. Ooooeeeee yeeeahh! Push him, rub your lethal fingers over him, excite him, teaaaaaaaaase him.

Oh yes, right there, the G of Good, of Great, of Ginormous. OH GOD …don't stop pushing the G, Good chapter, Great chapter … uhhh … Gastonishing, Gamazing …oh he's almost there … g, g, g, G, G, G, G, GGGGGGGGGGGG !!!!!

Did your computer screen just moan at you when you submitted your review? Or was it more like a grunt.

Oeee fans herself

Does anyone else just want to skip al the heavy chapters and go straight to the delicious "Okay Michael, enough with all the angst, let's just do that hot sweaty intercourse thingy and make you orgasm already"-part. I know, I want to!

Okay, you can stop licking your keyboard now, that's pushing it…really.

Alright kiddies, I hope you get the point, go review this. I had a really hard time writing it, I never knew it would be so difficult. Give me a nasty rape scene to write and I'll do it in under an hour, let me write this, and it takes me over a day! Why? Really, why? I don't understand that!

All I ask for the hours it took me to write this a little review that tells me you appreciate my efforts! That's not to much to ask, now is it?

Seriously dude, STOP LICKING THE KEYBOARD, that's really disturbing…

hihi


	7. One step forward, two steps back

Hi Babies, Mikey is in 'da hows' again and she has a hopefully wonderful chapter for you !

I know you had to wait for three weeks, but I will post the next four chapters this week!

So yes, I'm back with a vengeance. And because you had to wait so long, I made this chapter a little longer, and I put in a little handporn!! Oh for the love of god, stop screaming WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! I said 'A LITTLE' handporn!!

Thanks to my two lovely Beta's, as always, I couldn't have done it without you.

And special thanks to Martinibaby, she's going to a very hard time herself, but still she found the time to support me through mine!!! Bedankt schat!

ENJOY!!!

* * *

**One step forward, two steps back**

The broken and splintered door was barely kept upright by rusty hinges and worn down screws, its varnished skin was flaking off and there was a large area of missing wood from the door handle to the opposite upper corner. The gentle morning sea-breeze had picked up speed the minute Lincoln had set foot in the abandoned fishermen's cottage, and its heightened force was now slamming the door against its doorframe in an uneven and reckless rhythm.

Wood clashed into wood hard and loud, then again soft with a gentle thud, sometimes the door would bang into its frame a couple of times in a row, and sometimes the wind would blow so steady and firm the door opened almost all the way, mocking Lincoln with the promise of silence, to be violently thrown back into its framework with an ear piercing crash.

Lincoln stood frozen in the middle of the long-ago deserted shed and his gaze was fixed on the great mass of seawater he could see through the half broken window. His chest was heaving from exertion, and his heart was hammering so hard he swore it was about to crack open his chest. Not a single muscle in his body was relaxed, except for the occasional clenching and unclenching of his tight fists next to his body.

He'd started running the minute he'd left the house and with it, Michael, to find himself half a mile further along the beach in front of the abandoned cottage. It was a place he'd found accidentally the first month of Michael's incarceration in Sona, and since then it had become sort of a safe haven for him. A place nobody knew about, a place where he could let his guard down for a minute without feeling ashamed about it, a place where he could cry and be weak for just one second, without having to burden Sara or Jane.

His forehead wrinkled up in concentration and his teeth grated together in frustration, desperately trying to hold back the scream he knew would come anyway. This was not happening! His baby brother was alright and Sara was all wrong, she was WRONG! Wrong, wrong, all wrong, she was wrong. He repeated this mantra over and over again in his head, and after a moment he even started to whisper it, "She's wrong. She's wrong. She's wrong!" But even as his own strangled voice penetrated his fogged up brain, he already knew he was fighting a losing battle.

He _had_ seen the signs, Michael's shyness and wariness around him, his retraction from any bodily contact, his refusal to talk about his time in Sona, combined with the abnormal behaviour of Sara, not the girlfriend in this case, but the doctor who'd seen his injuries. It all added up to a very simple conclusion, but he'd forced his mind into a state of naïve denial, fuelled by his intense gratitude that his brother was alive and out of that hellhole.

He hadn't put two and two together, not because he couldn't, but because he wouldn't let himself. He knew he couldn't live with the fact that some vile monster had broken his little brother, and torn him apart all because of him and his survival. He had been selfish all of his life, and he hadn't known any better than to be selfish again when the first signs of possible rape had entered his mind after Michael's return. So he'd blocked everything, for his own benefit.

His eyes darkened with despair as angry tears wanted to break free, but he wouldn't let them. No! Not his brother. Not Michael. It was never meant to be like this. He'd borrowed the money because it was never going to be like this! Not for Michael, not for his brother.

A dry sob left his mouth and his legs started to tremble. "Mikey." he whispered brokenly.

The wind was picking up, whistling through the many cracks and holes in the cabins wooden structure, and the banging of the door against its frame became harder and more frequent. A storm was building outside, or was it in his head, he didn't know. He didn't really know anything anymore accept for Michael being raped, over and over again.

His fists were squeezing so tight now, leaving bloody nail-prints into the palm of his hands, and his vision turned red. Red from burning anger and furious rage, red from blood, his baby brother's innocent blood after being violated and the filthy blood of his rapist after Lincoln had finished with him.

For a moment all turned black before Lincoln's eyes and then all hell broke loose. A spine-chilling scream left his mouth, and before he had time to think about it he was advancing to the table and the chairs on his left. He kicked and screamed, grabbing the furniture and smashing it to splintered wreckage against the wall and floor. The old and dusty cupboard was next and then he was pounding away at the glass of the windows.

Blood from the cuts on his hands spurted on his face and clothes, but he didn't notice it, he just kept hitting the glass, the wall, anything, with the ferocity of a raging wild animal.

_Please Lincoln help me_, kick, _his brother's sweet pleading voice_, stomp, _it hurts_, scream, _make them stop Linc_, rip, _please Lincoln_.

There was a madness coursing through his veins, spreading a suffocating pain like he'd never felt before, and he just had to get it out of him. So he kicked and stamped, and he grunted and screamed at everything that stood in his way.

The rampage lasted for over five minutes and then this powerful but utterly broken man sank down like a boneless bruised mass. He laid his head down on the floor and whispered again "Mikey.", before fixing his gaze to the sea he could see so clearly now that the door had been ripped off its hinges.

He remained like this, eyes fixed on the sea, body surrounded by the debris of furniture for hours, with only one thought repeating in his head: that his salvation was irrevocably shattered, because his sweet little baby brother was raped because of him, and from now on nothing would be the same ever again.

-----------------------------

Michael had woken up after another long dreamless night and he was now lying on his side facing the window catching the frisky sun's first rays. His right arm was tucked underneath his pillow and elevated his head a little and while he pulled the blanket a little closer to his chin he let out a content sigh. Today was going to be a good day, he decided.

His body felt truly rested after yet another ten hours of uninterrupted sleep, and his muscles and injuries seemed to yet again ache a lot less than the previous day. At this rate he would be back to his pre-Sona form in no time.

But he knew that these blissful moments wouldn't last, the nightmares _would_ come back. Once his exhausted body and mind had recuperated from his five month trip to insomnia-land, they would surely hit him again with full force. But right this minute, with the golden sunrays warming his face and the soft pillow beneath his head, he couldn't care less about those looming troubles. He frowned a little because it suddenly felt like a postponement of his own execution, but the Scofield-Burrows clan seemed to have a lucky charm concerning that particular subject. So, maybe he would emulate Lincoln, maybe he could escape his nightmares too.

He heard muffled voices coming from downstairs and closed his eyes. Lincoln and Sara, his brother and his--, his what? Girlfriend? Had he even the right to ask that of her? No, those monsters in Sona took that chance away from him and now he was nothing more than a tainted shell of the man he used to be. He knew Sara didn't see him like that quite yet, he saw it in her eyes every time she looked at him, he felt it in her gentle touch when she attended his wounds, her love was strong, overwhelming even. But it was only a matter of time before all of that would change, before she would find out the truth. So, no, she's not his girlfriend, she's just his friend.

But still, these last couple of days, he couldn't stop feeling exhilarated every time she was near. Outwardly he looked collected and detached, better than any master of disguise. He could skilfully cover up that inwardly his heart was racing and every single one of his senses was on overdrive. Her sweet scent, her gentle caress, her soft voice, it all filled his being with waves of healing power, and he was sure his speedy recovery was undeniably linked to Sara's presence in the house. His brother too had the same effect on his healing process, and as long as he saw no sign of him dragging them down, he would shamelessly, albeit, secretly profit from the curing power they had offer.

His relatively cheerful mood from five minutes earlier had quickly taken on a brooding quality, and his peaceful face couldn't hide the scowl now. It was only a matter of time until they would see he was a changed man, until they would understand there was no more absolution left to attain. They would feel guilty, but disgusted, and their guilt would force them to stay, but eventually they would just leave, like always. And if that scenario didn't happen, his self-revulsion would surely drive them away. He'd never been someone who swore a lot, but right now he had to bite his inner cheek to not utter the vilest of profanities known to man. This too felt like a fucking delay of his capital punishment. Lincoln had escaped execution once, and maybe he could too, but twice, no, that simply wasn't possible.

Today suddenly didn't look so good anymore, and with a restless sigh he threw the covers off his body and got out of the bed.

-----

What had just happened? He didn't understand any of it; he had freshened up a little after getting up from bed, and then he'd gone downstairs in search of the voices who had on hindsight sounded more angry and desperate, like they were having a fight or something. He'd entered the kitchen which had been sizzling with a powerful angry tension, and the hairs on his arms had risen after beholding a distraught looking Lincoln and a devastated Sara. Something had been off, way off, and his suspicion had only been confirmed when both Lincoln and Sara had fled from him like he had some kind of highly contagious and deadly disease.

He was very confused and he wanted to know what caused their behaviour, but that alone left a strange uneasy feeling in his body. There had been similar awkward situations in the last two weeks, but he'd dismissed them with a shrug, too numb and too exhausted to even care. But now the only thing he wanted to do was find Sara, or Lincoln and ask them about it, and THAT scared the hell out of him.

What if his dreaded execution was closer than he'd thought, what would happen if he was already dragging them down into his own pit of misery. His face scrunched up and a slight quiver deformed his lips. They were already going to leave him, weren't they? Or maybe he should leave, because it was their house after all, and his forceful return had abruptly shattered the peace in it.

The gentle prickle of a lonely tear on his cheek caught his attention, and he brought his finger up to gently stop its flow. What was this, he was crying? He hadn't cried since that first fateful day when he'd woken up in the bed upstairs and not on the filthy ground in Sona. He hadn't felt the need or had the energy to cry after that, but now his eyes welled up with tears, and he felt even more confused. What was happening to him?

He sat down on the nearest kitchen chair and tried to catch his breath, because all of a sudden he'd been panting. After a good five minutes he'd collected himself. The tears in his eyes and quiver of his chin were gone, the morbid thoughts pushed away to the darkest room in his brain. They'd probably just had a fight and now, instead of his usual indifference, he was going to find an explanation for it. Before he knew it, his leg muscles had pushed him upright and he was going up the stairs, taking two steps a time, with a determined gaze fixed on his, or better yet _her_ bedroom door.

------------------------------

He walked into the bedroom doorway to be halted abruptly in his steps by the entrancing vision that met his eyes. She was redressing his bed with freshly washed sheets, and the delightful aroma of lavender laundry detergent invaded his nostrils.

As usual these last few days his senses went in overdrive, but as the hair on his arms turned upright and his abs started to twitch a little, he knew there would be something different this time. He shuddered a little, trying to shake off a nonexistent cold, and his mouth fell open a little bit.

She hadn't seen him yet, and he was glad he could shamelessly enjoy her unrestricted beauty for a few moments before they both would slip their masks back on.

God, she was beautiful. Her fiery red hair fell loose around her face and when she turned to the window, which she'd fully opened to ventilate the room, to pick up a new pillow case, the strong morning breeze blew several soft strands behind her, making her look like a model working on a photo shoot.

A strong electric current shot through his belly to his groin, which forced him to stagger back a little. He hadn't experienced that particular feeling in over five months, and it was overwhelming. He started to pant a little and tiny droplets of sweat were forming on his forehead. He knew he should feel guilty, watching her like this, while his blood chose to go southwards rather than to his head, but she was just too damn enticing and the feeling of pure lust coursing through his veins was too damn addictive.

She took a corner of the blanket in each hand and threw it in the air so it could fall relatively spread open on the bed. She wasn't satisfied with the result however and did it a couple of times more, each turn her tank top rode up a little exposing some of the delicious skin on her stomach.

Involuntarily his right hand curled against his lower belly in a soft caress and his fingers started to gently scrape against his shirt. Was he trying to sooth the light jerking of his lower abdominal muscles or was he boosting it, he didn't know and didn't care, because the moment she went on all fours on the bed to smooth over the opposite corner of the blanket, he came completely undone. A low but very audible grunt escaped his throat and suddenly time stood still.

What the fuck was he doing? Was he completely out of his mind?

Sara's head jerked in his direction and she clumsily scrambled of the bed. "Michael… I… I didn't know you were there!"

He quickly lowered his eyes to the ground and he hoped she wouldn't notice the fiery blush that was invading his cheeks. "Uh…" He coughed a little to rid his throat from the sudden invisible obstruction "I was just… uh… checking if you needed some help." He answered shyly still not ready to look her in the face.

His quest to find out the truth about the awkward situation downstairs, had been dropped the minute his blood had traded one spongy organ for another one, and he didn't really know what else to say.

"Oh," She whispered, "Well, as you can see I'm all done. You can meet Mister Sandman under fresh smelling sheets now, and I know you're both gonna love it!" She laughed a little at this and he dared to look up from the floor.

"Because, you know, it said so on the bottle of the washing detergent. It promised night after night of sweet, lavender filled, dreams. And if it doesn't, I sure will write a big complaint letter to the White-n-Bright- company."

He saw her eyes widen, as if she suddenly understood she'd revealed her biggest secret. She'd chosen this particular detergent for him, in the hope he would have a smooth sailing throughout his sleeping, without the burden of nightmares.

His eyes widened in return when the image of her standing in front of a rack full of laundry detergents invaded his mind. Her face set in a pensive way, her eyes betraying the mental discussion she was having about the advantages and disadvantages of every brand. She had done that for him, and for the love of the gods he didn't know why, but that felt like the sexiest thing anybody had ever done for him.

His blood coursed downwards with a vengeance and he suddenly was glad his jeans still fell a little loosely around his still too skinny hips, otherwise this could get really awkward!

She grinned sheepishly and her smile widened when she crunched up her nose. It was the cutest thing he'd ever seen and for a minute he stopped breathing.

He let out a quiet chuckle himself, and his ears were as surprised to hear it as her eyes were to see it. Suddenly the moment was broken when she started to pick up the dirty sheets and advanced towards him to get out of the room.

"Uh… I better go wash these." Did she sound nervous, or was it just his imagination?

"Oh… okay." Did he sound disappointed, or was that also part of his imagination?

She wanted to pass him along his right side, just as he thought she was going along the other side as he stepped out of the way, involuntary blocking her path out. Both mumbled a shy sorry and stepped to the other side, again blocking each other in the process. This clumsy spectacle lasted much longer than they both wanted and suddenly they froze as they found themselves sideways in the doorway. The doorframe on either side was pushing their bodies so impossibly close together he swore she could feel his nervous breath on her face.

She lifted her head in slow motion and suddenly all material things seemed to dissolve around them. Her intoxicating scent was driving him insane and when her little pink tongue appeared to lick her bottom lip, just before she caught said lip between her teeth, he was sure he lost a couple thousand brain cells right that second.

She started to lean in closer and god, did he just see a drop of sweat disappear between her supple cleavage.

Oh god.

"Michael?" She whispered so huskily, the hairs on the back of his neck raised immediately.

Another low grunt escaped his mouth, and this time he didn't give a damn, because her nipples were standing so deliciously proud against the thin fabric of her top, and the long forgotten flesh between his legs was so hard it actually hurt.

He started to lean in attempting to get closer to her, he raised his shaking arm clumsily to her face, knocking the dirty laundry out of her hands in the process. It landed with a light thud on their fleet, but to them it sounded more like a canon shot next to their ears. The spell was broken and they both jumped back so forcefully the encounter with the hard doorframe behind them was sure to leave bruises on their backs.

Her mumbled apology sounded much quieter than his high pitched 'sorry' but the situation turned really dire when they both bent forward at the same time to pick up the fallen sheets, effectively head butting each other in the face.

"Ouch!"

"Aaauw!"

They both retracted their heads quickly and started to rub the inflamed spots furiously.

"ow … ow… ow"

After a couple of seconds full of moaning and complaining, their eyes locked together and they burst out giggling like children.

Her laughter sounded like music to his ears and he couldn't deny his own chuckling brought a sense of comfort to his troubled soul, maybe there still was a little hope left for him. Without realising it, he wrapped his long fingers around one of her forearms and he led her to sit on the bed. He was too consumed by the sound of his own amusement that he didn't notice the shiver that ran through her body when his fingers voluntarily made contact with her skin for the first time since his return.

They quieted down after a few moments, before Sara's cheerful voice filled the room. "Well, that was entertaining. I think this moment can be a real competitor to my first kiss on the clumsiness-scale." She fell backwards on the bed so her feet left the ground a little.

He smirked quietly before turning his body to get a better look at her. She was stretched on the bed, with her long legs dangling over the edge. Her tank top had ridden up so high he could see the lower part of her navel, but instead of feeling sexual desire, a warm rush so great enveloped his heart it actually brought tears to his eyes. She was so beautiful, and maybe, if they succeeded in overcoming all the obvious obstacles, she could be _his_ again. His gaze travelled upwards, and after slightly wavering on her pert breasts, his eyes landed on her delicate face. She'd resumed rubbing the spot where their foreheads had connected, and he was just about to ask her if it still hurt, when his attention was drawn to her left cheek.

He frowned a little. The colour wasn't quite right in that cheek. It was a little too orangey with a couple of light greenish spots, and with puzzlement he noted that it had to be the remains of quite a large bruise. Something had hit her on that cheek, and he didn't understand why he hadn't noticed it earlier.

It felt like he'd lived in a haze of indifference the past few weeks and nothing had really penetrated the fog between his ears. With growing devastation he realized someone had hurt her not so long ago, and he'd been too fucking blind to notice it, let alone give her the comfort she probably had sought. His brooding face banned all traces of the previous happiness, because he could only form one conclusion in his head: even when he did nothing, he was hurting her!

Alerted by the sudden quietness in the room, Sara had stopped rubbing her head and now was watching him.

"Who hit you?" His voice was strong, direct and undeniable. He was preparing himself for a battle because she would surely make it difficult for him to find out what happened. The only fragment of peace in his soul was caused by the fact his brother had probably hunted down her attacker, and had caused him a great deal of pain.

She didn't answer right away and he was on the brink of assaulting her with too many questions to ignore or lie about, but something in her eyes made him stop before even a single word could leave his mouth.

She was looking at him with those heartbreakingly soulful eyes. Those big chocolate pools that weren't filled with horror or pain like he expected, but with something much softer. Her eyes glazed over, but the watery barrier couldn't hide the understanding and pity he saw in them.

"No." He started to shake his head and his spine straightened.

"Michael." She was pleading while pushing her body back into an upright position. Her hands sought contact with his, but before the touch of her skin could paralyse him, he sprang away from her.

"NO!"

She was on her feet half a second later and advanced towards him. "Michael, please, it was an accident, the night we brought you back…"

With every soft plea of her voice he took a step backwards towards the door, but she kept approaching.

"You weren't lucid then, and I… I… touched you, and your boot hit me…" she was desperate now, he could see, because they had left the bedroom and he was now sliding backwards towards the bathroom, the only room with a lock on it.

His head started to pound and a sickly feeling entered his belly. It felt like someone was hitting him in the stomach hard, over and over again, and he had trouble staying upright and not doubling over from the nerve wracking pain.

He had hit her, HE had hit her!!

"Michael… please… it wasn't your fault… please!" She reached out almost touching his chest, but he was quicker. He turned on his heels and closed the last distance between the door and him, and in matter of seconds he had locked himself in the bathroom and had slid down to the ground with his back resting against the door, like a second barrier in case the first lock wouldn't work.

For minutes he heard her muffled pleas.

_Michael… it's nothing__… it was nothing… listen to me… it didn't even hurt… please baby… _

But nothing really registered. He started banging the back of his head gently against the wooden frame of the door in an even rhythm, only wavering slightly when he heard the soft _baby_ from her lips. But his mental mantra was too strong.

_HE had hurt her, HE had hurt Sara, he had kicked her in the face… _

Her soft whimpering stopped after an hour and he heard her stand up and go downstairs, but he, he wasn't even close to being done, so he kept on hitting his head softly against the door.

Just over an hour ago it felt like they were making progress for the first time in five months, but it all seemed so insignificant now because one step forward, truly meant two steps back!

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Ten hours later an exhausted young woman lay on her bumpy couch.

She couldn't sleep, she couldn't cry, and she had nowhere else to go than to the empty bedroom she normally slept in but which had lost his appeal now that her big, bulky human replacement of a pillow wasn't there to help her dose in.

Or maybe she could pick up her blanket and settle in front of the bathroom door, but that would prove even worse than the empty bedroom, because she would still rather choose the cold empty bed over the deafening silence of the bathroom's occupant.

She missed her men, and though they were all relatively in the same vicinity, she'd never felt more alone than in that moment.

Another hour passed before one of those said men wordlessly slipped back into their home. He walked up to her bumpy sofa, looking all rattled and worn out, with bloody knuckles and a slight limp in his left leg from the unrestricted kicking he'd done.

She opened her eyes, grateful that at least one of her men was again safe and sound by her side, and she silently opened up her arms in the most inviting gesture she could muster.

His large form unceremoniously accepted her invitation, and so it came to be that this time, she offered the comfort instead of him, albeit in a much smaller bed, and this time he cried himself to sleep with his head on her chest and her arms around him.

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It was almost dawn when the second man left his safe haven, also exhausted but at the same time refreshed after straightening up his mind. He'd overreacted, he knew, his LLI showing his ugly little head in the process, and he knew she definitely deserved the chance to explain it to him better, to make him see the things he couldn't see right now, to convince him that it really wasn't his fault.

So with a new determination and the words _sorry_ burning on his lips, he padded downstairs, only to be knocked of his feet by the sight he found there in the living room.

His brother and his Sara were tangled up on the couch in the most intimate embrace he'd ever seen, and they both appeared so angelically comfortable in each others arms, it felt like someone had hit him in the face.

They were sleeping so sound, like two children without a care in the world, and he couldn't help but be overwhelmed by white hot jealousy. His Sara and his Lincoln, together, against him.

He always thought he would have been part of a duo when three became a crowd. Lincoln and Michael, Michael and Sara, either way, he wouldn't have been alone, but never had he thought about the possibility about him being 'the crowd', never had he anticipated the partnership that was Lincoln and Sara.

He backed away again, quietly leaving the room, with a feeling of dread and envy gnawing away at his insides.

The one step forward, two steps back from earlier suddenly seemed like peanuts, because this felt more like one step forward, a thousand steps back, and he just didn't know if he would ever have the power to overcome those odds.

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Man, I seriously consider writing an NC-17 endnote every time, cause the response I got after I'd suggested your keyboard was our luscious Michael Scofield himself, ppppfffffffff wipes forehead I think a lot of you risked some serious computer short-circuiting with all the saliva disappearing between the key tabs. But don't mind me people, just lick away!!!!

Hhhmmm brings index finger to chin and starts thinking NC-17 uh? Well, have I got some kinky Nc-17ish thought for you!

My name is Mieke, right, you know that. And my brother's girlfriend is…right…also Mieke.

Now, would you look at that! He screams the same name in total ecstasy in bed, than the name he used to scream at his little sister when she was pestering him….

Let me elaborate lowers her voice, so it resembles her brother's voice "Oh god…don't stop doing that … ooooooeee yes …. give it to me baby …. grunts Ohh yes I'm … I'm ….I'M commming…. MMMMMIIIIIIEEEEEEEKKKKKKEEEEEE gruntgruntmoangrunt

EEEEUUUWWW eeeuwww eeeeeeuuuwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!! That's just so disturbing. Eeeuw eeeuw eeeeeeuuuwwww!!

Ohh please, my dearest readers, I'm mentally scarred for life. My brother screams MY name when he's coming!!!!!! holds her chest while her heart is on the verge of going into cardiac arrest My name – coming - MY NAME - my brother's sperm…

Oh dear god, have pity on me. Please, just drop me a line and say how much you like me and this story. Just occupy my head with your review, otherwise I will think of nothing than my brother and my name, and that will turn my crazy. Now you wouldn't want that uh? Uh?

Hihi snickers, no seriously, I'm over it. It's been a running joke in the family for over ten years now. shrugs You get used to it.

I'm not gonna beg for a review this time. The opposite actually: you're completely off the hook for this chapter. Don't understand me wrong, I absolutely adore the people that drop me a line, it makes my day!! But if you're too damn lazy to log on and type a few words, or if you got simply nothing to say to me, THAT'S JUST FINE BY ME in this moment. Because my one year old niece was admitted to the hospital a couple of weeks ago with a very rare and very dangerous absces in her middle ear, she was critical for a couple of days but with an operation and lots of meds it's all better now. So really, review or not, all that matters is that Julie is out of danger and that alone makes me go EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

So peeps, you don't have to write me a review, in fact, I forbid you, how about that!!! PARTY! Just be your lurking self and don't type anything after reading!!

But it's a one time opportunity because next time I'm gonna beg sooooooooooooo hard, you'll wish you'd never even started reading this story!!!!!!

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Mikey


	8. Living on frustration, Tancredi style

Hey peeps,

I'm sorry if this chapter feels a bit 'empty' to you. I planned to write so much more in this chapter, but I got carried away with words again, so all the things I planned will be written in the span of three chapters instead of one, so yes it will feel like nothing's happening.

This part is Sara's pov, next chapter will be Michael's pov about the same situation and then in chapter ten something major will happen, that will make you all want to jump on a plane and come hurt me… a lot!

And I don't mean that in a "Oh Mikey, how dare you do this to poor Michael and Sara, I hate you for it, please write more"-way.

But it will be more in a "Lets free the horses out of the barn, tie each of her limbs to a different horse and lets then **quarter **her ass for daring to do this to us. Yi, horsey, Yi!!!"-way.

Are you curious yet? Reviews make me post faster! Oh man, that's not even begging for a review, that's just plain and simple blackmailing!!! MOOOEEEHHHHAAAAHAHAHA!!!

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**Chapter**** Eight : living on frustration, Tancredi style **

A month had passed since her 'almost kiss' with Michael. One month, as in thirty one days of hopeful anticipation and heart-squeezing longing, but also thirty one days of cruel disappointment and annoying frustration, because nothing had happened since then, nothing! No more gentle touches, no more whispered moans of yearning, no more eyes filled with desire directed at her, not a single damned thing.

'Sara, come on! It's starting!'

Lincoln's urgent voice bellowed from the living room and she shook away her reverie with a sigh. She was standing in front of the microwave, waiting for the popcorn to be popped because tonight was Tuesday evening, or better known as _movie-classics_ _evening_. Apparently Lincoln and Michael had done this ritual throughout their childhood whenever they could. Christina Scofield had been a real movie buff and after she'd passed away they had started watching one of her favourite movies every Tuesday evening to honour her and to seek comfort in each other.

Throughout the years the movie-evenings had become sparse, almost non-existent, and there always had seemed to be too many obstacles getting in the way of their childhood-tradition. Juvie, different foster homes, alcohol, drugs, resentment, a long list of things that had driven the brothers away from each other, preventing many such movie-nights from taking place. But once in a while, fate had been kinder to them, and had given them an evening of untroubled movie fun.

On those rare evenings, the two brothers had always chosen to drop the excessive baggage of bitterness, stress and awkwardness, and had just enjoyed each other's company, and loved each other without restraint like their mother would have wanted. They'd both stubbornly denied it countless times to Veronica, but those particular evenings revitalized them both to the point they were convinced they could take on the world again. Those valuable movie-moments had seemed to be the one thing that could penetrate the fog surrounding their relationship, and no amount of drugs or ambitious achievements could have consoled their broken souls like the sound of their shared laughter while watching one of their mother's favorite comedies.

Three weeks ago Lincoln decided the time was ripe to revive their childhood tradition, and to her surprise Michael's eyes had sparkled upon hearing Lincoln's proposition. Now, three movies later, Sara couldn't have been happier for the brother's tradition, because it seemed that this was the only time Michael relaxed completely, and let his guard down without hesitation. He'd laughed, he'd hooted, he had even screamed at the screen a couple of times, and it was honestly the most extroverted side she had ever seen of Michael. Every week she got a glimpse of the man she hadn't had the chance to meet yet. An invisible cage created by Lincoln's death sentence and its aftermath had imprisoned this man to the depths of Michael's soul, but for little over two hours a week, he found the power to escape his prison and resurface without restraint.

Every time she became spellbound by this phenomenon, because it gave her the chance to see him happy and relaxed for once, to see him for what he really was, and it only made her love him more for the things he'd given up for his brother.

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The microwave was counting down with still three minutes and forty seconds to go, and she chuckled a little thinking about the treat that was waiting for her in the next room.

Terminator was ready to flicker across the screen and after last week's Die Hard she couldn't be more thrilled by their choice of movie. She had never cared much for big, over the top action-movies, and she was a little surprised that Mastermind Scofield himself liked to indulge in such unchallenging blockbuster material, but boys would always be boys, she guessed. She grinned a little and knew she would soon learn to love those kind of movies as she remembered how endearingly boyish the two brothers had looked last week, when they had joined John Mclaine in screaming _yippikaye motherfucker!_ Their eyes had sparkled with mischief, and when they had high-fived a few seconds later, she swore she'd almost melted on the spot. They both had seemed so alive and content in that instant, it had almost made her forget about the multitude of uncomfortable and restless moments during the rest of the week.

Her face darkened immediately as her thoughts wandered back to their situation at hand. It had been such a confusing month, with conflicting emotions dominating everything. Firstly, there was the immense happiness she felt every time her eyes landed on Michael. He looked good, better than that, he looked _amazing_. He'd gained almost the same amount of weight he'd lost in Sona, his bruises and wounds had disappeared, leaving only tiny scars as visible prove of his stay. He'd started taking long walks along the beach to build up his physique, and every time he went on one of these walks, she counted the minutes until he would walk back into the house. She would watch as he shook of the white powdery sand from between his toes, looking all sweaty and panting, with his skin bronzed by the Panamanian sun, and with a rosy blush on his cheeks from the exercise. It all made him look so deliciously healthy.

In those moments her own face would flush with a different kind of heat, and that's when the conflicting emotions began. She couldn't help but feel an immense physical attraction to this magnificent man, and the more she tried to deny her feelings, the more her thighs seemed to quiver whenever he entered the room. She knew she had promised him time, but it had been almost fifty days since his return from Sona and her self-control was running on empty.

Every time he came into the room she saw chiselled muscles and plump moist lips, instead of Michael, and every time he spoke, his voice seemed huskier than before. The only thing she wanted to do of late was press him against the door the minute he arrived from his daily walk, and lick those luscious lips before he had time to protest. She didn't understand herself and her reactions and it made her feel guilty and lustful all at the same time.

She felt like a horny teenager, instead of a concerned friend, and the guilt of that was eating her alive. But as much as she tried, every single attempt at tempering her own carnal instincts was effectively squashed by the strange atmosphere in the house.

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She knew that to onlookers everything would seem fine. The three of them, they were a strange little family, yes, but still, they looked alright. They would cook, eat, and watch TV together, and like every normal family, they would talk about trivial things and sometimes even the more serious stuff. But if one looked a little closer, one could easily see the fine cracks and tears in their little household. They weren't communicating at all, in fact, Lincoln and Sara weren't even close to communicating on the same level as Michael, and it frustrated her to no extent that she couldn't break through Michael's mental barriers.

By now, she and Lincoln had hoped he would have been able to confide to them what they knew had happened in Sona. But he kept his lips shut in a dead lock about that subject. They were both at a loss on how to handle the situation. They were ready and very eager to console Michael, help him through this ordeal, as much as they both were desolated by the fact that he didn't seem to trust them enough to tell them about the rape. They couldn't predict how he would react to them already knowing, so they'd decided to not tell him, and give him the time he needed to come clean. They hadn't, however, anticipated Michael's stubborn silence, and all the lies and make-believe began to weigh heavily on their shoulders.

It was the politeness that really drove her to the edge. They were all being so fucking polite and diplomatic to each other, that it bordered on ridiculous.

Every morning brought the same fake display: _good morning Michael, did you sleep well? Yes thank you, and you? I slept like a baby!_

They were all lying through their teeth, and the bizarre thing about it was that none of them really did a good job at hiding it. They all knew they were lying, they just chose to ignore it.

They knew he had nightmares, hell, one would have to be seriously hearing impaired not to hear the anguished screams that came from Michael's bedroom every night. The dreams had started the night after Lincoln had found out about the rape, and sometimes the screams would get so loud, she thought there was actually someone in there with him, hurting him. They'd tried to console him the first few nights, but he'd forbade them from entering the room by barricading the door. When they'd dared to confront him the morning after, he'd always reacted distraught, retreating into his room for the better part of the day, so they'd decided, yet again, not to bother him about it, and let him come to them when he was ready.

He did not come, as expected, and instead handled it the more elegant _Scofield-way_. After a couple of days he had installed two perfect new shining locks on his bedroom door, so he didn't have to move the heavy coarse cupboard any longer. He'd also started to stay up later than them, hoping no doubt they would already be fast asleep when his nightmares began. So yes, that was Mister Scofield for you, always thinking one step a head. But dear god, did it unnerve her.

It didn't work, and everybody knew it, so, why pretend? Because, it was their strange way of living. They didn't know how to handle these things, none of them were equipped with what to do in such situations, and she couldn't count the times she had cursed herself for not taking on more cases dealing with post traumatic stress disorder during her residency.

For a while, Michael had thought he'd won this particular battle, but two could play that game, and Lincoln, not possessing the subtlety of his younger brother, fought back in his own way. She remembered how they'd been in the middle of dinner three weeks ago, talking about god knows what, when Lincoln had suddenly forsaken all politeness and had set things straight with his little brother in true Burrows-style. "Michael, you can install twenty locks on that door for all I care, but nothing will keep me from sitting by your door until you're asleep again. Do you understand that bro. _Nothing_! You can scream at me, lock yourself away all day long, I _don't_ fucking care. And, if you want to be the cause of my stiff muscles, because I have to sleep on the damned floor all night, that's just fine by me. But I _won't_ leave, and whenever you need me, just unlock the damned door, 'kay?"

He had delivered his speech with such strength and finality in his voice that she'd gotten the feeling that this was the tone he'd often used to scold his little brother. It certainly had made her quiet, and when she'd looked at Michael, with his eyes wide and dumbfounded, his mouth shaped into a little 'o', she knew Lincoln's words had hit home.

He still didn't unlock his door at night, and they all still pretended nothing had happened in the morning, but she knew he had to take some comfort in knowing his brother was sitting outside his bedroom. Whereas the first few nights he had suffered from multiple nightmares, they came fewer and fewer the longer he realised his brother was just a few feet away from him every single time. The first nightmare of the night was always still horrific, with Michael's anguished scream often resonating throughout all the rooms of the old house, but the minute he heard the slight rustle of blankets and cushions on the other side of the door he seemed to calm down a little.

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Just a few days ago she'd discovered something that made her heart melt and scream in frustration all at the same time. A couple of weeks earlier she'd transferred all the stuff she needed from her bedroom to the bathroom, so she wouldn't have to go into 'his' room anymore. She wanted to give him all the privacy he needed, and it had been over a fortnight that she'd last entered his room. But she'd needed something from her closet and he was on one of his walks, so she hadn't seen the harm in entering his domain.

The bed had been stripped of all sheets and blankets, and he'd made himself a cosy little corner of sheets, pillows and blankets against the wall next to the door. With a heartbreaking sigh she'd acknowledged that it was the exact same spot Lincoln occupied every night on the opposite side of the wall. He seemed so good at hiding his need for his brother and her, but at the end he was so desperate for Lincoln's protection, he'd sought out the closest position to his brother he could be in without having to admit it.

Only thinking about that discovery made her ready to run outside and scream her lungs out. Why was he being so difficult? They wanted to help him, no, they _needed _to help him, they _needed_ him to let them console him, but he was stubbornly denying any comfort, despite the fact that he so obviously craved it.

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She just wanted to touch him, feel him, but it had been almost a month since their skin had last connected. The first time he had touched her after Sona that day of the 'almost kiss', was the last time she felt his soft skin on hers. Had she known then what lay in their future, she would have pushed him against the doorframe hard and kissed him like there was no tomorrow.

She craved to feel him, to wrap her arms around him, to offer him physical comfort, and the more he retreated from her physically, the more her addiction to his body grew. It got to the point where she shamelessly sought out every opportunity for their bodies to meet: _Michael can you pass me the bread, please? Michael can you hand me the remote control, please? _She asked about twenty questions like that a day, always hoping to make any kind of contact, always being crushed by his clever and evasive ways to bypass the contact. He would throw her the bread or remote instead, or have Lincoln give it to her.

And her name, he hadn't said her name once since his return. She'd never really cared much for her name, it was so common and insignificant, like she herself had felt most of her life. But that had all changed when he'd entered her life. He had always said her name with so much emotion behind it, like he knew his desperate whispered 'Sara' would be the last thing to ever leave his mouth. She couldn't even try to feel common or insignificant anymore after his husky voice had formed her name, and just as his touch, missing it was driving her insane.

She couldn't handle it anymore. She wanted him so much and it crushed her that he didn't want the same thing in return. In the few weeks on the run they'd become so close, and he'd given her a taste from the most delicious drug that was his touch on her skin, his smell in her nostrils, his sweat on her lips. Now, that she was denied that forbidden fruit, her body craved nothing more than to overdose on it. _Once an addict, always an addict _never rang more true in her ears.

To her own consternation the side effects of her withdrawal were even more horrific than the denial of contact itself. She felt like a hormonal aroused teenager whenever he was near to her. Every single move of his body, or mumble from his lips, or glaze from those emerald eyes, was reason enough for her blood to go straight to her cheeks and to other certain places. Her nipples seemed to be painfully erect twenty four seven, and she was sure Lincoln and Michael noticed her discomfort. She just needed to touch him once, only once, because his body seemed to be the only conductor for her sexual energy to leave her. One touch, one hug, one kiss, one whispered 'Sara', that was all she needed, but he wouldn't give it to her, and that pissed her off. She was angry at him, for doing that to her, and she knew she had no right to be, but she couldn't stop feeling that way.

She saw the same frustration reflected in Lincoln's eyes as he fought the same war as her. He too wanted nothing more than to be able to hold his brother, to be able to pay off his debt for all the things Michael had given up for them. The only thing they had to offer was a shoulder to cry on and arms to chase away the cold and monsters, but he just wouldn't let them give it to him!

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The first few weeks of his return had been very difficult on her. She had worried constantly about his physical healing. Things like 'was he getting enough nutrition in his system' or 'would his wounds heal without infection' were on her mind all the time. She had worried about his mental state too, with him being so shy and detached whenever they spoke, but ultimately that had taken a backseat to his physical condition. During that time he hadn't been awake more than a couple of hours a day, the rest of the time he had slept like the dead and she had shamelessly spent hours watching him.

But now, the last month, 'being difficult on her' would be the understatement of the century. It was torture for her to witness how she had helped to restore his physical health to the state before Fox River, but now could do nothing about his mental condition. It felt like hell to live next to him, but never feel connected because of the brick wall he had built around himself. Before that day he found out about the bruise, she could at least pull some comfort out of tending to his wounds or watching him sleep, but from that day on, everything had changed. No more watching at his bedside, because he locked himself away while he slept, and no more touching of _any_ kind.

They did so many things together in which he seemed so collected and in control, but she knew his seemingly emotional detachment had to be part of his façade. She had seen the delight in his eyes on movie-classics nights, and he couldn't hide the waves of happiness coming of his exhausted body after he had successfully completed a long walk along the beach. Those tormented screams that made her shudder at night couldn't come from a mentally healthy person, and no grown man, with a high self-esteem would trade in a soft mattress for a hard parquet floor just so he would feel safe because his big brother was nearby. And sometimes, just sometimes, she would catch him watching her and Lincoln, and before he would be able to mask it, she would see a mixture of emotions in his intense eyes. She would recognise lust and guilt, maybe even love, but what scared her was that sometimes she would find something much more dangerous in those emerald pools, like anger and something akin to hate. She didn't really know, because she had never been on the receiving end of those emotions. She found that dangerous gleam in his eyes more often of lately, and it was innerving her immensely. He wasn't even putting in an effort to cover it up anymore.

"Sara! What's taking you so long?"

Lincoln's shout yet again brought her out of her trance and she noticed that the microwave's _ding!_ reverberating in the kitchen. Her trip down memory lane had stirred her inner turmoil to life again, and with trembling fingers caused by guilt, frustration and lust running through her veins, she opened the microwave and picked up the bowl of popcorn. A heavy sigh left her mouth. This was going to be a _very_ long night!

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He was kissing her again, right _there._ Oh god. And every time she felt his warm tongue lap her sensitive nub a small whimper escaped her lips. He felt so good and strong between her legs and he made her thighs quiver so hard she had to focus all of her dazed attention not to press them together and smother his face between them. She was so wet and ready for him that she couldn't stop the soft pleading sigh that fell from her lips "Michael…"

In the back of her mind she knew that this wasn't real, Michael's head was nowhere near her burning centre and she was nowhere near the release her body had been seeking for the last month. This was one of _her _nightmares. She too had them every night. But her monster in the closet was more beautiful than any other nightmare fiend she'd ever dreamed of. He had striking bluish green eyes, and plump red lips that could do wonders to her body and the most addictive embrace she'd ever know. And every night he came and did things to her, things she yearned for with desperation in real life, but she would never get. Those nightmares were pure torture, but she wouldn't, for a second, wish them away.

Oh god, he had started kissing her, demanding entrance with his probing tongue, and she could do nothing other than give in to his every request. She kissed him back, softly, gently nipping at his lips, and god, how wonderfully real they felt.

Another moan left her mouth and she squeezed her thighs together around his tense unmoving body. Wait a minute, tense unmoving body, she stilled her actions immediately and a feeling of total mortification was rapidly entering her belly. Her eyes opened slowly and it took her a few second to sharpen her visual focus.

Oh fuck!

They were still in the living room in front of the TV. The test-screen was on, indicating that the movie had long ended and hearing Lincoln's soft snores coming from the one man sofa she couldn't see, she pretty quickly concluded they had all fallen asleep in front of the TV. She swallowed hard and hoped with every fibre in her body that Michael was still sleeping, but out of the corner of her eyes she could see his right hand was gripping the armrest so tight his knuckles had turned white.

_Fuckfuckfuck!_

He was sitting in the right corner of the large sofa and somehow during their nap her body had travelled from the left corner to right next to him. She was turned on her right side, with her head resting in the crook of his neck. Her left hand was lying on his stomach, touching a little skin and the soft downy hairs on his lower belly where his t-shirt had ridden up, and her left leg was sprawled across his lap. With a feeling of total horror she refocused her eyes on his neck where she saw a small wet patch of skin. She had KISSED him! She had moaned his name _oh god_, and kissed him _oh god_, and quivered and squeezed around him _ohgodohgodohgod_.

She was still processing everything, when he yanked his body upright out of her embrace. Her mortified gaze slowly looked upwards and fell upon a panting, angry looking Michael. His cheeks were flushed and he had that dangerous gleam in his eyes again. They stared at each other for what seemed to be hours before he bolted out of the living room up the stairs.

Her common sense kicked in the minute he had broken eye contact, and with it a strange sense of bravery lifted up her soul. This had to stop, NOW! She had to make it right, explain to him why this sort of thing could have happened. They had been dancing around each other for almost fifty days now, and she was on the verge of breaking down. She couldn't deal with it anymore without telling him, and that was just the thing she was about to do.

Without hesitation she stood from the couch and started walking to the stairs. From now on things would be different. She didn't know what she was going to say, and frankly she didn't want to know, she only knew that this bravery she had coursing through her veins wouldn't last long, so she had to take her chance, now.

Tonight would be a breaking point! She only hoped it would be one for the better.

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I don't have to beg for a review this time, because I gave you freaking **dry humping**!!! That's like 'Hand-porn times 896'! If that's not worthy of a review I don't know what is? Hihi. One of my beta's (RDG) said I was a sick puppy for letting horny Sara dry hump Michael in her sleep, but hey, she loves me for it, isn't that right babe?!!!! So I hope the rest of you love me for it too!

So show me the LOVE babies, just type that damned review and just show me the LOOOOOOOVVVVEEEE!

Oh and my other beta (Pemphredo) wants to come to Belgium to hunt me down and conflict a great deal of pain on me if I'll not stop torturing Michael soon! Oops, I guess I should go hide then, cause she's not gonna like the next few chapters! Man don't I have the bestest of bestest beta-team EVER!!! They call me names and wanna torture me! HOW LUCKY AM I!!!! Hihi, just kidding hons, I'm completely, head over heels, smitten with you two! Just like I am totally, over the top, in love with all my loyal reviewers! Kisses to you all!!!!!!! Mikey

PS: Has anybody got an update on baby Wayne Callies. He/she has to be born by now, right?


	9. Living on frustration, Scofield style

Yow yow yow, MIKE is in da hows, yow!

And I'm here to keep my promise of posting the last four chapters I wrote within the week.

This one is from Michael's point of view. I hope to clear up a bit of the things you missed in the previous chapter. But do have in mind that this chapter may seem a little chaotic and messy sometimes (paragraphs in Italic mean flashbacks off course). I'm trying to get insides Michael's head and he isn't the most sane person at the moment and I'm trying to convey that through my writing. Michael may also seem a bit out of character. Again, be patient uh, our boy has gone through a lot. He's angry, frustrated and has the self-confidence of an amoeba. He isn't really himself right now!

Enjoy! X Mikey

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The morning sea looked tranquil and peaceful as its waves lapped onto the shore with a steady pulse. On normal days its immaculate rhythm would have already rendered him spellbound in a mental daze, but today there was an itchy feeling in his blood which wouldn't let him escape this reality. There was something burning in his chest and he wanted nothing more than to scratch it out, but the more he tried to relax the more his nerves seemed on edge.

It had been a long and confusing month, and he tried his best to cope with it in his own way, but he knew he couldn't hold on much longer like this. Something had to change fast, otherwise he feared the consequences would be disastrous.

He had started taking long walks along the beach, no doubt his brother and Sara thought he was building up his physique, and he was, but that was just one of the many reasons why he left the house daily for hours. He had to flee that place for his own sake. Once he'd woken up from the mental haze of the first few weeks, his LLI had gone into overdrive. Every day the walls seem to close in on him faster and tighter, Lincoln's and Sara's wounded and guilty looks were driving him insane, and his own nightmares paralysed him to the point where he couldn't breathe.

So every day he fled the suffocating grip of their home, to find him self four miles along the beach sitting cross-legged in a secluded part of the dunes, watching the calm ocean in front of him. It was the only place where he could think straight, and where the jumbled mess that was his thoughts vaporised into nothingness. This was his place of meditation, his only time of reprieve from his inner demons, but in the last couple of days even this place had become tainted. He couldn't seem to relax anymore, even here, and his fingertips felt rough and agitated from all the tapping he'd done in the last two days. Something was stirring inside of him, something dark and dangerous, and with shattering clarity he realised he wouldn't be able to hold it back much longer.

His eyes widened as he saw a large seagull dive down into the water to emerge with a struggling fish in its beak. Was he that fish? Was he naively struggling to stay alive, knowing full well his soul had already been sold to the devil? His index fingers were drumming a furious beat on his knees, and he couldn't help shake his head a little. Oh, things were going to get ugly, real soon!

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He had tried to stop the flashbacks from coming all morning, but his mind was like an out of control machine-gun, shooting away one horrid mental image after the other. It felt like he had entered a twilight zone movie-theatre, where he was forced to relive every sordid memory from the past six months. Flashes of rape, blood, of tears and red hair, blazed through his head and with growing anger he realised that every flashback ended with _them_ together on that couch!

NO! He was _not_ going to go there. There was nothing going on between Lincoln and Sara. Nothing! They were just very good and close friends and there was nothing more to it. He was one hundred percent certain of that. Besides Sara wasn't even his brother's type. That's right! Lincoln didn't fall for beautiful, intelligent, strong, long-legged, sexy women.

The beating of his fingers increased with every thought of them together. They wouldn't do that to him, no, of that he was sure. _He_ had given up everything for them, so they wouldn't just betray him like that, right? Oh great! Now they weren't together out of pity and guilt for him. _He_ was fucking keeping _them_ apart, they were obviously in love and his presence was interfering with their relationship.

Angry tears appeared in his eyes while his gaze dropped from the ocean to the sand in between his crossed legs. Seeing his brother and her together like that had torn him apart, but the jealousy and anger he felt afterwards was crippling him even more. He had no fucking right to feel like that, and every time that he couldn't stop those emotions from manifesting, he felt deeply ashamed.

Sara and he had been something, nobody would ever deny that. But those, what, five hours and twenty minutes in total they had spent together in prison, plus the few phone calls they had shared, and the couple of days they'd spent together on the run, made them what exactly? Boyfriend and girlfriend for a week, impressive! And he was sure those three kisses had made her so weak in the knees, she'd forgotten all about her father's death, her overdose, and her loss of medical licence, all things he was responsible for. Talk about one hell of a boyfriend.

It didn't matter that he had given her his heart irrevocably the minute he'd opened that unlocked door the night of the escape, it didn't matter one little bit, because he was weak and she deserved so much better than him. She deserved someone who could protect her and Lincoln certainly could. His brother had always been the strong one, the masculine one. No girls at high school had ever looked at him twice. No, their lovely glances had all been reserved for his older brother, and he hadn't blamed them one bit, because he was just the shy, little dorky brother of Lincoln Burrows.

He himself had _fallen in love_ with his brother's strong personality, so why should he be angry at Sara for doing the same. He had always been weird and abnormal when he was a child, but Lincoln's protectiveness and strong appearance had almost made him feel like a normal kid.

When their mom had died, and his frail little body and mind hadn't been able to handle the onslaught of memories and tears, strong Lincoln had been there to support him and carry him through it. His brother had been right next to him to dry his tears, to force him to eat, to lie beside him and hold him when the nightmares wracked his mind. Lincoln had been just a naïve kid himself, but he hadn't broken once, instead he had swiftly switched to the role of being his caretaker without any complaint.

Later on, when his sensitive nature had put him in the number one spot on the school bullies target-list, Lincoln had come down and _explained_ thoroughly to them why it wasn't in their best interest to pick on his little brother. They never bothered him afterwards, they even seemed to fear him a little, which had given him a strange sense of power.

Even in those years of estrangement, Lincoln had seemed to be his source of power. Most of the words spoken between the two young men had been words of anger, but even then, his brother had always managed to make him feel special. _You are fucking gifted, Michael, you were always the one who was destined to do great stuff. So go study, or go do whatever it is you do to become a genius, because you are one bro. And stay the hell away from booze and drugs. I probably lost the right to father you years ago, but if I ever see you near that shit, I swear you will know what I have to say about that. _

Oh, and he had _known_ alright. In his first year in collage a sudden surge of rebellion had ended up in a week of drinking, smoking pot and ditching classes. He had been tired of being the whiz-kid, of being the guy that everybody loved when it came to class-notes and group-projects. But also the nerdy guy that they couldn't ditch faster when it came to partying and being popular. That combined with the news of his brother being incarcerated again for another small theft had driven him off the edge.

He had done a lot of 'firsts' in that week. First time to party until breakfast First time to mix beer with scotch and to puke his guts out later. First time to get high on pot and the first time to lose his virginity during a quick drunken tryst on the dirty bathroom floor at a house-party with a nameless blonde. Those 'firsts' should have felt liberating, but he hadn't really enjoyed enough of them.

Somehow his brother had found out about his week of little adventures and the minute Lincoln had been released from prison he had hunted him down. At the end of that week his brother had dragged his drunken ass out of bed and had punched him in the face a couple times. His left eye and cheek had carried a nice large bruise for two weeks after, and he'd been so angry with Lincoln he didn't speak to him for four months. However on the Monday morning after his violent encounter with Lincoln, he had been back behind his school desk, where he belonged.

All the things he'd done in Fox River may have seemed brave and heroic, but he'd only found the courage to do those things because of Lincoln. He'd been so afraid to lose his brother. The prospect of living in this daunting world without the protection of the only person who ever truly understood him, had driven him to execute all the dangerous plans for the escape to work.

He had borrowed strength and bravery from his brother his whole life, but it had all come crashing down the minute he'd been ripped away from Lincoln, and had been put into Sona. He'd tried to stay courageous on his own. Really, he had tried so hard to fight like his brother would have done. But in the end he became the weak disappointing man he was all along without Lincoln.

His brother wouldn't have been raped; he would have fought back with everything in his power, and Lincoln would have won! But not Michael, not him, he'd given up so soon. He had let five beasts brutalize his body, because he was nothing more than a scared little coward without his brother.

So, compared to Lincoln, he had nothing to offer Sara. She needed someone strong, someone who could protect her, someone who could love her like she deserved, and he certainly couldn't do that. He was nothing more than a disgusting castrated coward, who let men fuck him in the ass and mouth without much protest. He was filth, and both his brother and Sara deserved much better than him.

If he was totally honest with himself _he'd_ even vote for Lincoln and Sara to be together, because he knew they would be great as a couple. He loved them both so much, and if he looked beyond the feelings of anger and frustration about what he'd lost, he just wanted them to be happy. But why did it have to hurt so damn much? Why did his heart seem to explode every time he saw them together?

They looked so comfortable in each other presence, like they'd known each other for many years instead of a couple of months. Lincoln knew her favorite colour, her favorite dish, her little quirks and habits. For crying out loud, he even knew her favorite author. Lincoln, the guy whose most challenging reading material was the hobby-section of the playmate of the week, knew Sara's favorite author. That was the stuff _he_ was supposed to be good at, but he knew nothing about those little things, and it frustrated him enormously.

A couple of angry tears were finally able to escape his eyes, and he sniffled a little when he felt more tears were ready to fall. It had been like this for the past month, his mind was a chaotic mess of emotions and flashbacks. It felt like a war of conflicting feelings was raging inside of him, and he was clueless about how to fix it. One minute he would feel so utterly grateful and happy to be with them, a minute later he would despise them for their betrayal. Sometimes his heart swelled with so much affection it physically hurt. They had rescued him; they loved him; they wanted to do everything for him, and sometimes he felt so much hate and loathing towards them he wanted nothing more than to punch them both in the face for their adultery.

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Minutes past full of sniffling and violently wiping away tears with the back of his hands. He refused to let those thoughts and tears win today, and if he could just calm down a little, it would all be fine. He tried to refocus on the positive things.

Maybe he was just seeing things, maybe his overactive imagination had jumped to the wrong conclusions after all. He remembered a couple of conversations he'd had with Lincoln about the rescue. His brother had mentioned Jane in a little too obvious affectionate way, although he still claimed nothing was going on between them, even when Sara teased him about it. Now, she wouldn't tease him about it if they were having something too, right?

More comforting pictures of movie-classics night and Sara smiling flashed before his eyes, but soon these memories got tainted too.

_A heart-wren__ching scream penetrated his skull, and while his semi-conscious mind tried to focus on his surroundings he realised that scream had left his mouth. He was lying in his bed, panting and sweating like he'd just run a marathon, and while he tried to catch his breath, flashes of his earlier nightmare invaded his head._

_They had fucked him again this time, but instead of five beast__s there had been dozens of them lined up to have a go. _

_He rubbed his closed eyes to chase away the images__, while a slight shiver coursed down through his body. The bed sheets and blanket lay in disarray at the foot of the bed, no doubt he had kicked them off furiously trying to escape his molesters. But the night's air was chilling the sweat on his body rapidly, so he sat up straight to rearrange the messy covers. His actions stopped abruptly when he heard a low commotion in the hallway. Footsteps resonated through the house and then the sound of a large body sliding ungracefully against the wall could be heard. _

"_I'm here Mikey__." The deep voice of his brother was muffled by the wall that separated them but he could still hear those three words perfectly. A quivered sigh escaped his mouth and he closed his eyes again as the most intense feeling of gratitude warmed his body from deep within. Lincoln was there, again, and he would chase those fucking bastards away! _

_He hesitated only a little before he started to grab all the cushions and blankets his arms could possibly encircle, and carried them to the place next to the door. He lowered the soft items to the floor silently before slipping his body down to sit on them. _

_He leaned his back against the wall and turned his head a little to the left so his ear was pressed against it. He slowly raised his right hand across his chest to touch the wall next to his head. He exhaled deeply while he watched his fingers gently starting to caress the brick wall. He felt his brother on the other side, they weren't separated by more than eight inches, but he still wanted to get closer. He imagined that his fingers were tenderly stroking Lincoln's shoulder, instead of the concrete barrier between them, showing him how thankful he was. _

_His gaze fell on the newly installed locks on the door. Why couldn't he just open the damn thing? Why? He didn't understand himself anymore. _

_In the last couple of days he'd become an expert in doing this without a sound. His searching out his brother's closeness like that was nothing but a sign of weakness, and he didn't want them to know how much he craved their presence. But as a low rumble started to resonate from the other side, and he realised that Lincoln was humming one of the bedside songs his mother used to sing to him when he couldn't sleep, he had to cover up his mouth with his hand to keep from moaning. He hadn't heard that song in over twenty years, and the realisation that Lincoln remembered it, and was using it to soothe him now was bringing tears to his eyes. _

_His face scrunched up as if in pain, when he tried to stop the tears and whimpers from coming. _

_Suddenly he heard another voice in the hallway, his brother and Sara were softly talking, and just like that the tears in his eyes, and the grateful feeling in his heart disappeared to be replaced by bitterness. The sound of her voice came from Lincoln's bedroom and not from downstairs where she pretended to sleep. They thought he hadn't noticed, but he would even wake from his deepest sleep when he heard those creaks on the stairs in the middle of the night. She always started out on the sofa to end up in Lincoln's bed, and it frustrated him to madness when he heard her pass his door every night to go to his brother's room. How dare she do that! How dare she bypass his door like that! She belonged here, in his room, in his arms! How can she do that? Because, you close them off, you fucking prick! You pushed her right into Lincoln's arms and no-one other than you is to blame for that! _

_Nothing ever seemed to happen in that room, he hadn't heard any compromising sounds, and on some nights, when his nightmares were more vigorous than normal, Lincoln didn't even bother to stay in that room for long. The hand before his mouth squeezed into a fist, and he hit himself two times in the middle of his forehead. He wanted to knock some sense into himself, or at least stop his mind from flashing all those horrible suggestive mental pictures, of what could possibly happen between Lincoln and Sara in that bedroom. _

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He blinked furiously as his eyes re-focussed back on the sand between his legs. This had to stop! But his mind wouldn't listen as another flashback of days earlier attacked his brain.

_The stream of water was burning hot__, but he couldn't care less. He was scrubbing at his skin so furiously that big red marks were already appearing on his body. He felt dirty and stained to his core, and no matter how hard he scrubbed and how many showers he took, he would never be able to wash the filth of their handprints away. With a frustrated grunt he slammed both his fists into the shower wall in front of him, and he closed his eyes to calm down a little. _

_He had watched them__ secretly from the living room's window after their return from the store. They'd put the shopping bags on the porch and had decided to take a walk to the sea to bathe their feet in the water a little. They'd been walking hand in hand, and had seemed to be talking about something serious. At the end of their little talk, Sara had flashed his brother the most dazzling smile he'd ever seen and he'd almost ripped off the curtain behind which he was hiding, when he saw their tight and heartfelt embrace. _

_They were touching and hugging and grabbing each other so damn much and it was making his skin crawl. __It wasn't even about them being together. Today, he hadn't ignored the fact that those touches could all be absolutely innocent. But seeing her so close to Lincoln, to anybody really, was driving him mad. HE wanted to be the one to make her smile like that, HE wanted to hold her hand, HE wanted to feel her delicate hands on him. But he couldn't let that happen, it would destroy all of them so he stubbornly fought off every contact. _

_Visions of her naked body wrapped around him invaded his mind, and he had to lean in closer to the shower wall to steady himself on his suddenly trembling legs. Her perfectly shaped breasts and little rosy nipples bounced before his eyes before his tongue made contact with one of those perky buds. She moaned in his head, he whimpered for real in the shower. Oh he'd had these kind of visions before but never so amazingly vivid as today. _

_To his own mortification he felt his member start to stiffen. What the fuck was going on with him? He felt so angry and aroused all at the same time and instead of feeling guilty it seemed to excite him even more. His erection was now painfully hard and a__s pictures of Sara kept swimming before his eyes, he felt the first signs of his impending climax. _

_Suddenly he was very afraid of what was to come. His last sexual peak da__ted from the last week back in Fox River. A couple of nights before the escape his mind had been so stressed out by the upcoming events, he'd tried to calm himself by thinking about her, the one good thing in his life at that moment. Before he could control himself his hand had travelled down into his boxers and he'd masturbated with her in his mind. It had been quick, three years of celibacy could do that to a man, and it had been silent with him biting down on his other hand to keep from moaning and waking up Sucre in the process, but it had been good. He feared that, this time, the feeling wouldn't be good at all. _

_The whirlpool__ of emotions and thoughts that normally rendered him paralysed were now setting his belly ablaze. His cock started to twitch spastically while a series of shallow pants and grunts escaped his mouth. _

_She was so beautiful and would feel so tight wrapped around his member. He wanted to make her moan and whimper and scream his name out loud. How dare she fuck his brother instead of him! How dare they betray him like that, after all he had sacrificed. _

_His mind was screaming while he banged his fist for a second time a__gainst the shower wall. He was ready to explode and he hadn't even touched himself yet. What was happening to him? _

_Visions of milky long legs wrapped around the strong muscled body of his brother suddenly coursed through his head and that was his final undoing. While his mental Lincoln and Sara climaxed together he let out an agonizing groan as his cock twitched into orgasm. _

_It hurt so much, both physically and mentally that he collapsed to his knees almost immediately. His belly muscles and penis were twitching painfully in the aftermath of his first climax in__ months, but as the filthy semen on his belly was gradually being washed away by the running water, his mental soil would be there much longer. _

_Silent tears coursed down his cheeks mingling with the shower's water and he leaned in his head against the wall. What was wrong with him? He was a total freak, who got off on imagining his brother screwing his girlfriend. NO! He got off on her and she didn't deserve that. __He was nothing better than those monsters in Sona. He felt so ashamed he couldn't even hold his weight upright on his knees so he slumped against the shower wall._

_How was he ever going to face them again? How was he ever going to be alright with them being a couple?_

"Fuck!" He almost spit out the word. He pushed his body off from the sand violently and started to walk back to their house. He had come here today in the hope of finding some peace, but instead he was more agitated than ever. He hoped the four mile walk back home would calm his troubled soul somewhat but he was afraid_ that_ was one miracle he wasn't going to get today.

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As it turned out his restless mind had calmed a little during the day and he'd even enjoyed himself while watching Arnold Schwarzenegger do his thing, but the edgy mental war in the morning had worn him out, so he'd fallen into a slumber before the end of the movie.

When he woke, he knew immediately that something was _off_. He opened his eyes and stopped breathing, literally. Sara, _his_ Sara was curled around him, moaning and squeezing away like a nymph in heat. A violent flash of hot electricity shot straight through his belly to the girth of his penis. In a matter of seconds he was ready to join her moaning and squeezing on the couch, but he wouldn't let himself.

His nails dug into the armrest painfully while he squeezed his legs together to relieve a little of the hard tension, but he almost lost it right there when she started licking his neck.

"Michael" the softest of sighs penetrated his ears

_No! No! NO NO NO NO! _

How dare she do this to him! How dare she put him in this situation. He had done everything in his power to avoid her touch, to avoid corrupting her with his filthy imprint. And in a matter of minutes she had squashed his efforts merciless. He had longed for her deliriously sweet scent, her touch, so much it had almost killed him to shy away from it, and then she ruined it by shoving it all in his face.

She was awake now, he could tell, and he sprang up from the couch as if she'd burned him. He couldn't even see her through the red haze before his eyes. She had no right to make him feel this way. She had _NO_ right! And with that he sprinted away from her as fast as he could.

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He was already pacing a whole in the floor when she barged into his bedroom. Every extremity of his body seemed to tingle with electricity, including the painfully hard erection in his pants.

He stopped abruptly and his heated gaze locked with her wide eyes. After a few second she broke the intense staring contest and her eyes travelled down. She swallowed hard upon seeing his obvious discomfort and she started to back away to softly close the door behind her.

This was it! The bombshell they had been carrying for the last month was entering his final countdown.

"WHAT?" His shout was so loud it seemed to make the window rattle.

Her eyes widened even more, if possible, and her mouth fell open a little. She was obviously struggling with her own thoughts, but he was too far gone to care.

"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" He was on the brink of insanity now, with his muscles so tense, and his breathing so uncontrolled, he couldn't think straight anymore.

They stared at each other in silence for a few agonizing seconds, and suddenly their world came crashing down.

"I… I… just want you to hold me. Michael please, I can't stand it anymore… I just want to feel you." Her voice was so desperate and soft all at once, he had to strain his ears to hear her.

"What?" His face scrunched up with disbelief, he started to shake his head. She was doing it _again_! She was making him feel _again_, and, for what, for her _own_ selfish benefits? She didn't want to heal him, she wanted to heal herself, and apparently Lincoln hadn't been able to provide her with everything she needed. In the back of his mind he knew he was making no sense, but the itchiness from this morning was back in his blood full force, and he couldn't control it anymore.

_Oh, he would show her alright! He would show her what she did to him good._ And with that all lucid thoughts were driven from his mind to be replaced by a fog of frustration. His eyes glazed over as a month of pent up aggravation, jealousy and sexual tension was released from its cage deep within Michael's soul. It felt like the devil and angel on his chest were raging for dominance imprinting a burning sensation so powerful in his lungs, he started struggling for air. With his last shred of clarity Michael willed his angel to win, but just like the eternal mark on his skin, his devil was already in place to deliver the final blow, and with that he felt the last of his humanity slip away.

With determination and a dangerous glint in his murky eyes he started to advance on her.

_Oh, she would feel his touch alright, she would feel him good!_

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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (runs around screaming with her hands in her hair)

Oh , I'll do that again for you: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (resumes running around screaming with her hands in her hair)

MY GOD!! I don't know about you, but I'm going fucking crazy right now. I EVEN want an update!

So let me know how much you want it, and maybe you'll get lucky and I'll post it this evening. MAYBE!


	10. Road to perdition

Alright kiddies here's chapter ten as promised,

I posted as far as on prisonbreakfic net so from now on you can choose where you follow WFA. I will post simultaneously on both sites.

Before you start reading: here's my **big fat WARNING**!!!!!!!! I want you all to get serious for one minute and read this chapter note very carefully.

(slips into rarely seen serious Mieke)

I absolutely want to stress that I condemn every kind of violence/abuse towards women. NO kind of abuse, how small it all may seem, can be allowed. There are millions of women in the world that are being raped or beaten or verbally raped by men who thrive on their dominant physical power. And I just hate the fact that anyone of us, rich or poor, black or white, can become a victim of it. And the fact that this kind of violence will never truly be extinguished beats down my naïve-world-improver heart.

However, I do acknowledge, that in some cases, there is more to the story than the the act of abuse itself. And I can understand that in some cases, if both parties are willing to work for forgiveness, real absolution can be attained in the end.

I took 5 years of karate and my nickname was 'the fighting machine' because I just couldn't get enough of learning about a man his weaker spots. Many of the male karateka's weren't looking forward to fight with me, because I ALWAYS directed my foot at their crotch!

I strongly advice for every woman to learn self-defence.

(slips back into her usual crazy self)

Okay, peeps, just in case I don't make it: it was good to know you all. I loved you all!

(goes to closet to change outfit: bullet-proof vest, check / shin-protectors from boyfriend's soccer bag, check / Skeeler knee and elbow protection, check / baseball helmet, check / Karate crotch protection of brother, check / ski goggles, check / sprinting shoes with lots of sharp spikes at the bottom, check / belt full of protection utensils: baseball bat, water balloons full of acid, darts arrows, check check check)

Oh man , am I glad that I studied sports in college.

Five minutes later

(goes back to closet to change attire again, after noticing, she couldn't even waggle with all that shit on, let alone sprint away from an angry mob)

Okayyyyyyyy. Plan B

(starts doing some skippings and jumping jacks to warm up all her muscles for the cruel exercise to come)

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**Chapter ten: Road to perdition **

He had propelled himself towards her with such unexpected force that they slammed against the closed door with a heavy dull thud. His trembling hands were on her cheeks within seconds, and the last things he saw before he crashed his lips against hers were her shocked wide eyes and slack hanging mouth.

The kiss was like nothing he had ever felt before. Where the first had been gentle and exploring, the second had been sweet and erotic. And while their third had been desperate and uncontrolled, this one was something new all together. It was brutal, vicious even, like the only possible outlet of his rage was through his tongue. He didn't ask for permission nor waited for her to adjust. He just started probing and licking and sucking with such need she had no other choice than to respond. When their tongues finally met, a surge of white hot lightning rushed through his body. His stomach was on fire and his groin felt ready to explode. His fingers were tingling like her skin was burning him, and he could do nothing more than to press them harder into her cheeks.

Their faces changed angles furiously and their tongues were fighting so hard for dominance they created a loud sloppy sucking noise in the quiet of the night. His right hand travelled to the back of her neck, pushing her even more into his bruising kiss, and he pressed his left hand and lower arm flat against the door above her head, as if wanting to block every possible way out.

Disarmingly fast the pressure in his stomach became too much and he nudged her legs apart forcefully with his foot so he could press his lower body closer to hers. He started grinding his hips against her body, desperately seeking some kind of release for the throbbing flesh between his legs, and they both broke off the kiss to moan out loud.

On hindsight this would have been the perfect time to stop, but one look at the seductive image she portrayed was enough to make him plunge off the edge of sanity. Through squinted murky eyes, he saw she had tilted her head back against the door, her eyes were closed and she had trapped her swollen lower lip between her teeth. Erratic pants left her mouth, and every time he rubbed his groin into the juncture between her legs, a small groan squeezed by her teeth. Her long slender neck lay vulnerable and exposed before his eyes, and the silky skin seemed to stretch on forever due to the low neckline of her green summer dress. Oh, that dress, why did she have to wear that dress today?

Her chest heaved in search of air, pushing her pert breasts into him with every gulp she took, and when she started to push back against him, rubbing her hot centre against his straining hardness, his nails dug into her neck and into the door painfully, that he had to close his eyes to not lose it right there.

Paralysing anger enveloped his being again and he stilled his hips for a moment. Sara, however, kept on pushing and whimpering and it only enraged him more. She was using him again to get what she wanted, he was nothing but a mere tool to temper her physical cravings, and she was probably even thinking about a much bulkier someone behind those closed eyelids. He gritted his teeth together as jealousy joined the lust and anger in his blood. He was nothing; insignificant, someone they _all_ used like a cheap filthy sex-toy and something they all threw away mercilessly after they'd broken it, but _this_ time he would not let them, _this _time he would be the one in charge.

_He'd known subconsciously that this moment was inevitable, but he had still foolishly hoped that he would be the first to escape that fate, that, somehow, they would have known __he was the brother of Linc the Sink, and that somehow that fact would be enough to avoid the upcoming atrocity. But as he stood peeing in the dirty hall full of grimy urinals he knew his time was up when he felt the other fifteen or so occupants quickly leave the room. In a matter of seconds the messy sound of Spanish and English chatter was replaced by eerie silence. The hairs on the back of his neck jumped upright, and he shivered as he felt another presence enter the room behind his back._

_He urinated as fast as he could, spilling some droplets on the floor and on his pants and moments later he started to tuck away his manhood with jittery hands but it had all been in vain, because before he could pull up his zipper he felt a large hand clasp the back of his neck in a crushing grip while a terrifying whisper penetrated his ears "That won't be necessary, boy."_

He attacked her body even harder, crushing her once more between the door and his chest, with his focus now solely directed at that luscious bottom lip of hers. He sucked at it, nipped at it, grabbed it between his teeth and pulled, earning another low moan from her throat. Her hands that until now had hung lifelessly next to her body, travelled up to rest on his hips, and started to caress his skin just above the waistband of his jeans.

Images of Sona conflicted with the want and need he was feeling, and his face scrunched up with inconceivable wrinkles of anger and confusion as he kept on kissing her. In a fury he dropped both his hands to grab her bottom cheeks violently under her dress and he hosted her up against the door without hesitation. A surprised squeak left Sara's mouth against his lips, but she had no choice than to wrap her bare legs around his waist to steady herself. She was about to say something, but he wouldn't let her, because his hips were already pushing back mercilessly against her burning core, like he was trying to push inside of her with their clothes still on, and they groaned in unison every time his raging hard-on pressed against her damp panties. Her hands were everywhere now, around his head, against his cheeks, squeezing his shoulders, and it was driving him mad.

Flashes of everything and nothing shot before his closed eyelids. He wanted to be in her, oh god, he needed to feel her tight muscles clamp around him. There was so much blood and still the dismembered piece of cock he had spit out of his mouth seemed like a piece of art. The friction of their clothes against the tip of his member was torture, but heaven at the same time, and why the fuck did she have to look so tempting in her green little sundress today? Why hadn't he run, why hadn't he fought harder against them, maybe they would have killed him, but wouldn't that have been better than this. Was she moaning for him, or was it for Lincoln, he couldn't tell. And oh god, her thighs were quivering so hard and he had to squeeze more firmly onto her buttocks to keep her from falling. He was bruising her with his fingers, and the delicate skin of her ass would carry his fingerprints in the morning, like he still carried those filthy prints on him. They weren't there anymore, but they would never be gone.

_He was hauled backwards by his neck while another hand gripped his right arm and twisted it behind his back. He started screaming and struggling like a mad man. "NO. Help! Please, somebody! Help! NO! Don't do this!" He kicked backwards with his foot vehemently__, and his free hand was grabbing and scratching at the face behind him, but his opponent seemed unfazed by his feverish antics. He still hadn't seen his molester behind him, but that soon changed, as he was dragged to a broken down washstand above which a mirror hung. The mirror was not made of glass, but of an unbreakable cheap polished surface that deformed the human features into weird and alien looking angles. It made his attacker appear even more daunting, and although the image was greatly distorted, that still didn't change the fact that the guy behind him was twice his size. _

_He kicked and stomped and screamed with renewed power, until he was silenced when his head was brutally smashed against the mirror a couple of times. He tried to blink away the dizziness, but the room kept on spinning when his body was being bent over the sink and his face was being pressed against the mirror. Blood from the fresh wound on his forehead smeared against the shiny surface and he saw his own eyes widen and mouth go slack, when he heard the unmistakable sound of a zipper being lowered. _

Furious rage was fuelling his every thought and movement now and with strength he didn't know he possessed, he twisted himself 180 degrees with her still clamping and trembling around his burning body. He sank to his knees and they crashed to the ground violently with his body on top of hers. She led out a strangled cry of pain but her protest was soon drowned by another attack on her lips. His hands turned into reckless tools of demolition, messing up her hair, squeezing her sensitive breasts hard against his palm and ripping down the strings of her dress so he could push down the hindering fabric over her bra-clad breasts.

As her perfectly shaped bosom came into few, a small surge of wonderment soothed his troubled soul for a second. She was perfect, just like he'd imagined, she was even prettier than in his dreams. But the peaceful feeling was soon overridden by unbearable lust and frustration as he crashed his mouth down onto her right breast and started sucking the rosy nipple through the lacy fabric. She moaned, and he sucked harder. She whimpered and he started to twitch the neglected bud of her other breast between his thumb and forefinger.

He increased his lapping and suddenly he bit down around her areola. A strangled "Michael" filled the room and she arched her back so lusciously off the floor, pressing her nipple into his mouth hard, that he couldn't deny her anything, so he bit down again. This time she bent her knees higher, so he rested perfectly between her legs, and she lifted her heated crotch off the floor to rub against his still covered manhood.

A low animalistic grunt sounded from the back of his throat, and before his mind had time to catch up, he had pushed his body upright to a kneeling position between her legs and he had hooked his fingers under the small elastic band of her panties. Oh god, she was already so wet, wet for him, and that smell, that delicious aroma of her need, even her arousal smelled like flowers. He ripped the offending piece of clothing almost to shreds while removing it and seconds later he pounced back on her body like a lion on his vulnerable prey.

He kissed and bit his way back up from her breast to her jaw line, stinging the delicate skin with his days old whiskers, and in the back of his mind he noticed that she had turned limp in his arms.

He heard her soft "Michael, maybe we shouldn't?" But he chose to ignore it, even as he kept on inflaming her skin with his rough kisses.

He started fondling her breasts again with his left hand, while his other crept down to release his straining member from its cage.

She tensed up immediately with the sound of his zipper and she tried to stop his hands. "Michael. No. Stop. We're not ready for this!" But he pushed her hands away roughly, and grounded his hips into her core again.

"MICHAEL! STOP!" She started to struggle against him, pushing his chest away from her, but he was too heavy and too far gone to be overcome.

She kept on pushing and calling him to stop until his patience finally snapped and he pulled both of her arms roughly above her head. He pinned them down with his left arm while his right hand gripped around her throat.

Time seemed to stand still in that moment and the room seemed to freeze over. Their faces were inches from each other while he trapped her down with his body and he was half strangling her. Their noses almost touched and he could feel her frantic breaths of air colliding with his face. He captured her eyes with his steel gaze and what he saw in those trembling chocolate pools should have scared him to death, but it only seemed to fuel his anger more.

She looked scared, scared of him. All traces of lust were gone to be replaced with fear.

His devil roared in his head, telling him she was a filthy whore for arousing him like this and then not wanting to deliver. His inner demon turned to mock him too, because he also was a filthy slut, letting grimy monsters manhandle him without protest, and Sara was absolutely right in denying his sorry ass any pleasure. She was right in choosing his brother over him. She didn't need him any longer now that she had tempered her urge, so she was ready to throw him away. How dare she fuck his brother! How could she leave him hanging like this!

He released her neck suddenly and rushed his hand down to finally free his straining erection from his pants. His caged angel was screaming inside his head to stop, creating an instant headache, but he wouldn't listen, he couldn't listen, he wasn't in control anymore.

And while he guided his cock to her wet entrance and heard her pleading whimper "Please…Michael…no!" the man, known as Michael Scofield, fell apart into a thousand irreparable pieces.

"_Please, don't do this. Please…no!" __But the last word hadn't fully left his mouth when the monster behind him pushed his large fleshy shaft into his unprepared body with one strong trust. An earth-shattering scream left his mouth, and he realised he had never in his whole life, screamed like this. His throat hurt from the sheer force of it, but he did it again and again, every time that large stiff penis invaded his rectum, ripping him open in the process. _

She cried out as he pushed into her to the hilt in one swift thrust. She had been aroused earlier and that helped a little. But her face still contorted with pain as he invaded her body so mercilessly. His angel was scratching and crying and kicking at his soul, screaming for him to stop, or if nothing else to push into her more gently, because if there was the slightest chance she hadn't had intercourse in the past few months, she would be as tight as her first time. But he couldn't do anything about it, his rage kept on pushing into her roughly. He couldn't see the tears leaking sideways from her eyes, he couldn't feel her struggling body beneath him, he couldn't hear her devastating soft whimpers for him to stop, and he couldn't see her lovely face anymore. The only thing he saw were the smirking faces of those fucking bastards, and the only thing he felt was their filthy come dripping from his backside!

While he kept on pounding into her body he grabbed her chin in a vice grip with his right hand, and forced her to look at him. "How could you do that to me?" He spat in her face! "How could you fuck me like that?"

"I hate you! I hate you! I hate you ALL!" His voice turned hoarse from screaming.

Through the red haze in front of his eyes he could see her distressed face soften a little. She was still crying softly but she had stopped struggling and the fear in her eyes was slowly being replaced by compassion. What the fuck was she doing? Why the hell did he see love in her eyes? He was a monster, he was raping her! He growled again and dropped the hand from her chin to grip her right hip with bruising fingers. He hated them, why didn't she hate him?

_It lasted only a minute but it felt like an eternity to him. He had stopped screaming half way through it, his throat choked up by heartburn and saliva. His face was pressed against the mirror and with strange detachment__ he inspected how a mixture of the blood from his cut, the tears from his eyes and the drool from his mouth dripped down of the mirror in a long reddish slimy drivel. He felt the man twitch and groan behind him and than he was tossed on the ground like a ragged doll. Every movement of his body hurt and he knew the warm sticky fluid running down the back of his legs had to be a mixture of blood and semen. But he didn't care, so he kept on pulling up his legs to his chest and screamed out in pain every second of it. But once he had locked himself in a foetal-position on the dirty floor of Sona's bathroom, the pain seemed to lessen a bit, and he just started to cry softly. _

Ten minutes earlier he had still been asleep on the couch downstairs but now he was thrusting into his Sara like a man possessed. His groin started to twitch and the slow brutal strokes were quickly being replaced by a shallower, but faster pace. Sweat was running down his back and his gaze was blurred by angry un-spilled tears. With every stroke a whispered _I hate you_ tumbled from between his gritted teeth, and soon those whispers quieted down too. Suddenly his stomach muscles pulled tight together, and the heat in his groin became almost unbearable. He was close now, and through dazed eyes he saw Sara place her soft hand on his cheek in a gentle caress and after her sweet voice filled his ears, the world around him crumbled to dust. "Just let it go, Michael."

He shuddered and groaned erratically for a few seconds after which the whole of his weight slummed down on top of her slender body.

----------------------

She felt completely drained, all her muscles had turned to jello, and she could do nothing more than lay there on the floor like a limp doll. Her mind and body were numb and the only things that could capture her focus were the hammering of his heart against her chest, the puffing of his breath against her ear and the softening member between her legs. She should feel angry and disgusted, and she would. She should punch him in the face, and she would too, someday. A war of inner turmoil should be raging inside her soul, and that would happen too, but not today. Because right now, she was in shock and the only thing that mattered was that it was over, for her as much as it was for him.

Suddenly she felt Michael stir on top of her. He slowly raised his head and then their eyes locked. He looked so confused, and so vulnerable, with dozens of questions swimming in his deep orbs, like he hadn't been present in the last couple of minutes and he had only now been returned to his body. His forehead creased while he was trying to comprehend how he had ended up cradled between her legs on the cold wooden floor.

She knew she would remember this moment for the rest of her life, because she was sure she would never see someone dissolve into pure devastation quite like Michael Scofield did in that moment. Suddenly, his eyes became impossibly wide as he finally recalled what had happened in the past ten minutes, and the most disarming mixture of utter horrendousness, guilt, and vulnerability appeared in those liquid emerald pools.

He violently pushed himself backwards away from her body, to land hard on his backside a couple of feet in front of her. She saw him scramble backwards ungracefully on his hands, feet and buttocks, while furiously shaking his head no.

"Sara?" he uttered so softly and brokenly for the first time in months.

Their gaze broke and his eyes travelled over her dishevelled posture. She cursed inwardly because she knew she must be making a pretty sight, with her tousled hair and dried tear-marks on her face, with her clothes all but ripped from her body and her skin and lips red from being assaulted. His gaze stopped on her exposed inner thighs and she swallowed hard as she followed his gaze. A small trickle of blood was dripping down her thigh and though she quickly closed her legs, it was already too late. The man in front of her turned on all fours just in time to vomit his guts out. He heaved so strongly her own throat and chest closed up from the pain she imagined he was feeling. Suddenly he scrambled to his feet, half tripping over his own soil before backing away towards the door. His chin and hoodie were stained with his vomit, and his hastily rearranged pants were still unbuttoned. But the sight of his eyes and the utter hopelessness in them, was what brought tears to her own.

"Michael." She whispered.

"Sara." Again it sounded so broken and childlike.

And then he was gone, sprinting down the stairs and out of the house.

She gave herself only a couple of seconds to come down from her dazed high, and then she was up and running behind him. Every muscle in her belly was protesting with the sudden exertion, and the damaged flesh between her legs promised to make her pay dearly for this action, but she couldn't let him leave like that.

They had to talk about this, and she just knew he would handle this situation much worse than she would, if she couldn't get a hold of him and make him understand that he was not the only guilty for what had just taken place.

She dashed out of the house in record time and saw him running along the beach fifty yards in front of her. She started sprinting in the same direction, with her gaze fixed on only one thing, his form in the distance. She ran, like she had never run before. Her blood was furiously pumping through her leg-muscles as heavy breaths left her lungs. She seemed to close in on him and thanked the gods for his still recovering physique and she screamed her heart out "Michael!"

He stopped dead in his tracks, his chest heaving from the work-out and she did the same. They were separated by forty yards, but she could still see the shock on his face, as if the last thing he'd expected was for her to follow him, but then they were running again, _and _he was picking up the pace.

With her tiring limbs and the growing despair in her stomach, she saw his shape become smaller and smaller until he had disappeared completely from her sight.

She stopped and fell on her knees, struggling for air.

"Michael… don't leave!" Was the last whisper that left her mouth before she began to cry hysterically.

* * *

Starts running like a mad woman from the impending angry mob behind her 

Please, babies, please, don't do this.

I promise lots of healing, please!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reviews make me write faster...the healing...remember the healing...


	11. Three of a kind

Okay I won't explain into detail how much the next chapter(s) annoyed me. It feels like I've been writing at them like FOREVER. Plenty of life's interruption and a "Mikey falls asleep and drools everywhere, anytime and on anyone as an after effect of the camps"-kinda induced writer's block, makes me want to hate chappie 11 and 12. They sucked big time to me yesterday, they sucked a little less today, and you'll probably think they suck not so much, but hey I will rewrite them someday if I find the courage, but for now I just want to get them out of my system, so here they are: welcome to the suckiness!

Hihi. Okay okay, I'm being melodramatic because it really isn't that bad, but I started on Monday (half an hour here, half an hour there, falling asleep and waking frustrated because precious writing time was lost) and did the same until yesterday, and honestly that just SUCKS! Hihi!

So enjoy the suckiness babies

Oh, and do you know who doesn't suck: Beta RDG, she had to do it by her self this time, cause Pemphredo is on her fabulous Wentywatch trip down in the states. So extra kudos for her. Oh what the heck Pemphredo, thank you too honey, for all the previous times! Hail to the two non-sucking-beta-goddesses.

And hail to Elke too, she checked the level of suckiness yesterday, and didn't find any. But between you and me, she is a little biased. I enchanted her with my magic-Mikey-charm, and now she has a big-fangirly crush on me, moehaha, but the feeling is mutual.

So here's part one. Just like before chapter 11 and 12 should be read as one. I just cut them in two, because the chapter was too large as one.

Xxx Mikey, lord of all things that suck!!

* * *

**Three of a K****ind**

It had been one day since he'd raped Sara and probably over twenty hours since he'd stopped running, but his muscles still hurt like they were pumping full speed, and his chest still felt tense and squeezed together, like he was struggling to get enough oxygen in his lungs. He was sitting on the floor of the upper level of the lighthouse he'd come across half a day earlier, and he estimated he had to be about ten miles from home.

Ten miles, it felt like he'd run a hundred, but still, it wasn't far enough for him. Nothing could be far enough from her, from her tousled hair, her bruised lips and that single drop of blood dripping down her thigh. He swallowed hard again, for the millionth time that day, and couldn't stop the groan that passed his blistered lips. Swallowing felt like rubbing abrasive sandpaper up and down his throat, his mouth was dry, his head and stomach hurt because he hadn't eaten anything in over 24 hours, but still, getting up and searching food was the last thing on his mind.

His back rested lightly against the wall and his head was tilted a little to the right, making his neck muscles scream under the strain of impending stiffness, but he couldn't care less. His half opened eyes were fixed on infinity with lids too heavy to close or open fully. He'd noticed the imperfection of the wall in front of him, some bricks were larger than others and the whole mass was coated with a layer of inferior white paint that had been so impatiently applied, various small crumbles of dried paint still covered the wall. Normally, he would already know the amount of bricks on that wall and he'd surely have counted how many specks of paint could have been smoothed down by a simple second layer of coating. But not today, not right now, not when all he saw was milky white flesh, instead of rough pale plaster tainted by that damned trickle of coppery red liquid, instead of hundreds clots of dried harmless paint.

His left arm was pressed against his chest, and his right hand rubbed against it in an even rhythm conducted by the whooshing sound of the sweeping light beam above his head. Whoosh, rub, whoosh, rub, over and over again. The imperfect wall, the hissing sound of the illuminated rotating lens, the rape, the pain, it should have turned his mind into a paralysing chaotic mess hours ago. But how, he craved that kind of incoherency now, because never, in his whole damned life, had his thoughts been clearer than today. There were no distractions, no fades to black, no jumbled mental state that could intervene with the flawless movie that was played before his eyes. Just whoosh, rub, whoosh, rub, just the immaculate reconstruction of the previous night's events, and his soul screaming monster, over and over again. Just whoosh, rub, whoosh, rub.

He'd run so hard and so fast after he'd discovered that she was following him, that he hadn't even noticed the sun had set until he'd tripped over a beached log in the black of the night, and had fallen hard on the wet sand. He'd started vomiting again, due to the cruel exertion of running for hours, or due to the horrid images of her in his head, or due to both, he didn't really know. But after his stomach had quietened down, every ounce of energy had seemed to slip from his body, leaving him with only just enough power to crawl a few yards from the water and fall flat on his back in the soft dry sand.

Silent tears had started to leak from his eyes, mixing with the sticky sweat and sand on his face. The stars came out, and seemed to mock him with their happy twinkling and beautiful brightness, he hadn't been able to drag his gaze away from them. That's how they'd almost found him hours later. His mind had been momentarily perplexed when he'd noticed the jittery flashlights in the distance and heard the soft voices of his brother and her. While the soft "Michaels" had become louder and stronger with every step they'd closed in on him, a feeling of astonishment had warmed his cold body within seconds. They had come for him! He was utterly expendable, and should be thrown in hell to rot for all eternity, but there they'd been, looking for a needle in a haystack in the pitch black, there they'd been a few hundred yards away from achieving their goal. The freshly attained feeling of comfort had been chased away instantly by a bone-crushing panic, and he'd scrambled away silently to flee into the night for the second time that day.

The sun had already risen when he'd finally found the lighthouse. He'd broken the cheap padlock, barricaded the door once inside and slid down the wall on the upper floor in pure exhaustion. Now, many hours later the sun had yet again set, but he was still in the same position and even more worn out than before.

He should try to close his eyes and get some sleep, he should stand up and go search for some food and water. He _should_, but he wouldn't. Because all that mattered were the images in his head, all that mattered was her, all that mattered was his screaming soul condemning him to an inferno. You're a monster, you're worse than all those beasts in Sona put together, you love her and you rape her, you don't deserve to_ fucking_ live! Whoosh and rub, whoosh and rub!

He felt like he'd been living in his own world since his return from Sona, detached, floating, frustrated and not in charge, giving the vicious _thing_ inside of him all the time to grow and spread like a malignant tumour. It had to stop! If he ever wanted to redeem himself, it had to stop today. From now on he had to take back control and be strong. It would hurt like hell, he knew, but he had to do it, because he needed to atone to her. For all she'd given up for him, this was the sole and most important thing he had to do.

Whoosh, rub, whoosh, rub. His right hand tightened around the steel in its grip, and though his body-heat had long been transferred onto the metal, it still felt like ice in his palm, burning him with the cold. He had to get rid of _the thing_, he had to maim it, kill it, cut it out of his body. He had to cripple it, just like it had done so brutally to his soul, to overpower it. If he ever was to achieve any kind of absolution from her and his brother, and from Bob and David, from Henry and Charles and from all the others, he had to overcome this ominous numbness and feel himself again, _be _himself again. Pure and simple he had to wake up, so he kept on rubbing while the light beam kept on whooshing.

For the first time in hours his gaze shifted from the wall in front of him, to his chest. His left arm was pressed tight against it while his hand gripped his hoodie in a death grip. The fabric of his sweatshirt was ridden up into the crook of his left elbow, exposing the everlasting art on his forearm. But instead of blew greenish twists and turns he saw red, the deep coppery red of his blood, of her blood, of Lincoln's blood. His flesh was marred with a multitude of straight lines; small ones, large ones, shallow ones and deep ones. The knife in his right hand was old and blunt but hours of steady rubbing had made scarring cuts as good as any new sharp blade could do. No doubt it hurt, and of course his arm looked like a massacre, but with every cut the suffocating pressure in his chest seemed to diminish a little, and with every small flow of blood he saw a small piece of _the thing_ leave his body. And for the first time in forever he felt a little hope. The feeling seemed so insignificant, drowned by the omnipotent guilt and shame, but nevertheless it was there, small, like a premature infant, but strong-minded and willing to beat the odds of life.

---------------------------------

It had been three days since Michael had run away. Three long days of no sleep and searching and screaming his name, begging him to return. Three days of praying to a god she didn't believe in, praying to bring him back to her save and sound, just wishing him to be alright, and not frightened, or hurt, or worse. NO! She would not go there. She believed in him, he was strong and wouldn't just end his own life like that, he wouldn't do that. Would he?

Lincoln and her had lived on coffee and adrenaline the past couple of days, and she shuddered while thinking about the familiarity of it all. It felt like they were transported six weeks back, to Michael being back in prison, to them trying to survive the pressure and anxiety the best they could, with lots of caffeine and keeping busy.

But just like then, her body had been the first to crack under the strain, and that's why she was laying exhausted in Michael's bed while Lincoln was still out there, searching anywhere, everywhere for his brother. Her tired mind replayed the last conversation she'd had with him earlier that day and while she snuggled deeper into the soft comforter of the bed, she gripped her cell phone harder in her hand.

_They__ were searching this part of the beach for the forth time in three days, looking for him, or any sign he may have left behind. But just like the times before, nothing out of the ordinary could be seen. The same feeling of dread she'd felt earlier, while searching the harbour and after that the two nearest cities and their hospitals in particular, crept up her spine, her fatigued mind couldn't ignore the fact any longer that this all just seemed like a big fucking waste of time. He was Michael Scofield for crying out loud, he was the mastermind of the Fox River escape, he wasn't just going to sit on the beach with a big freaking "I'm here"- neon sign above his head. _

"_Lincoln." _

_He was speed__ walking in front of her and she was half walking, half running to keep up with him. "Lincoln!" She tried more urgently, after he'd blatantly ignored her first call. _

_He slowed his pace a little, showing her he was listening, but he didn't stop. _

"_Maybe we sh…" _

"_NO! We shouldn't!" _

_With a frustrated sigh she stopped dead in her tracks. Nobody interrupted her when she was pissed off, not even Lincoln Burrows. _

"_Why the hell not, Lincoln! We are going around in circles here. For all we know, he hopped on a bus and is half way around the country by now. He ISN'T here Linc, just like he wasn't yesterday." The anger in her voice died out quickly, being replaced by desperation. _

"_No! That little shit IS here, I just know it!" He was pacing up and down the beach now, and frankly, it was making her dizzy, but he was in 'the zone', and nothing could stop a determined Lincoln in 'the zone'._

"_Sara, get it through your head. I'm NOT going home, even if this is fruitless, I'm gonna keep on looking, find that little punk and kick his fucking brains out!" _

_She knew he didn't mean it, like he knew it too. And she knew this was just his way of keeping control. He'd always dealt much better with anger than with fear. But she couldn't deny the feeling of comfort spreading in her belly. This man was willing to kick his own flesh and blood, because he'd hurt her, and his reaction of brotherly love and protectiveness could easily beat any emotion of anger, fear, guilt or whatever, if even for just one minute. _

"_Lincoln." She tried to calm him._

"_No! You don't get to Lincoln me on this one. I'm gonna drag his sorry ass back home, make him grovel like a dog until he drops and kisses your feet for the rest of his life…Seriously, It's been over two months, Sara…"_

"_Six weeks." She corrected him, but soon realised this probably wasn't the wisest thing to do with an enraged Lincoln. _

_He silenced her with a dead stare and continued "It's been six weeks. He should have at least talked about it, about something, anything, I don't care!" He shook his head and continued. "He doesn't get to bottle it up anymore and act like that. He didn't come to his senses voluntarily, FINE BY ME, 'cause, I'm dying to help him with that, BY KICKING HIM IN THE BALLS!" He finished with a vicious 'fuck it' accompanied by a hard kick in the sand. _

_The last part lacked so much finesse, and was said with so much determination she had the strangest urge to giggle. That was a furious Lincoln for 'ya, tactless and brutal. But she didn't giggle, in fact, she was the farthest from giggling. Because as angry as he'd been a few second ago, so miserable did he look now. _

_It always came back to this, the guilt, the hopelessness, the fear. If all the anger and frustration was stripped away, that was all that remained for both of them. The guilt of not having been able to stop the things from happening, of not getting through to Michael and help him like he needed, instead of letting him die inside more and more each single day. The hopelessness for the future, their future, but especially Michael's, because they both understood the gravity of the impact this would have on him. And that brought them irrevocably to the fear, the fear of THAT particular future, how dire it all may seem, not being there at all. The fear of finding him exactly where they were looking now, because the only way they would stumble on him on that beach in broad daylight would be if he was still and not breathing, and that was just something they couldn't begin to consider._

_He sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes slowly while she approached him. He tentatively brushed her cheek, giving her all the time to escape his touch if she wasn't ready after what had happened to her, and the surprise of it almost brought tears to her eyes. She couldn't understand how this bulk and normally indiscreet piece of a man, could secretly harbour such great gentleness in his behaviour. They didn't see it, but those two brothers were more a like than they thought, and after witnessing the uncontrolled anger in Michael's eyes she meant that both ways. _

"_I know you're beat. I am too, Sara." His tired sigh only fortified that statement. "But you know me, sitting in that house would only drive me AND therefore you crazy. I would break every single piece of furniture by the end of the day and you know it." _

"_True."_

"_I need to be out here…and you, need to be there, sleeping, 'cause, frankly, you look like shit!" _

"_Thanks." _

_They sighed together heavily__, though with a hint of a smile in their breath, before his arms enveloped her, again so hesitantly but still so comforting. She felt him slip the car keys in her pocket and hugged him a little tighter after his "Keep your cell close." penetrated her ears._

Now, surrounded by Michael-smelling comforters and cushions she wanted nothing more than to hug Lincoln crazy for granting her this reprieve from the search. She was in Michael heaven, really! He was above her, below her, in her and out. He was everywhere, literally. She was sure she looked like a refugee from J-cat, with the too large Michael PJ-bottoms that clad her lower body, and the stained Michael t-shirt she'd fished out of the laundry basket, which was now covering her chest, but she couldn't freaking care, because he was here, he was everywhere, his smell was covering the whole of her, invading her and soothing her better than any morphine ever could have.

She still couldn't quite fully comprehend why she felt this way. After the initial shock had waned off she waited for the resentment, hate, disgust or anything like that to come. She waited, and waited, but she felt none of it. In fact, her heart felt ready to explode, like in the last couple of days she'd grown to love him even more. How the hell could anyone _ever_ logically explain that? At first she blamed it on the search and fear for his life, but now, lying down in her self constructed Michael haven, she just stopped trying to judge herself and accepted the fact that she was alright, that she was alright with what had happened.

In the back of her mind she knew full well why her reaction was so peaceful and considerate toward this mess, but for the last three days she'd tried to block those memories from another lifetime from invading her head again. Under pressure she'd succeeded, but now, with nothing left to do but wait for Lincoln's and hopefully Michael's return, she couldn't stop to recollect those dreadful times. She'd been in that horrid predicament before, in fact rape and she had seemed like the best of friends once upon a time.

She'd been raped twice in the literal sense of the word; once, when innocence had still been a great part of her life, by one of her father's political goons. He'd thought he'd blessed her with setting up this date for her, making sure she dealt with respectable men, rich men, educated men, men he approved off, men who weren't her dead beat friends, men who knew how to treat a woman. Oh, how wrong he'd been. The classy and gentlemen façade had dropped the minute they'd left the political fundraiser ball, and she had denied him further indulgence than a few kisses. It had been brutal and humiliating, leaving visible as well as mental bruises, but his threat of dishonouring her father if she'd ever tell anyone was so daunting, she'd picked up the pieces of her broken soul and left quietly, never to inform anyone.

The second time, she was so far gone on morphine she didn't really put up much of a struggle. He was supposed to be her friend, and shooting up in his basement had seemed like an excellent idea. But, as he'd climbed up her body she'd realised too late she'd walked into the den of the lion voluntarily. She didn't struggle like the first time, too tired and too wasted to find the strength, but she'd begged and cried and wished him away, but he hadn't listened.

But both those times hadn't come close to all the times after that. And in those cases there was no-one else to blame than her stupid little self. She'd done horrible things to her body, agreeing to sexual escapades of her dealers voluntarily. She'd done a lot of freaky stuff in her 'bad girl days', stuff that _normal_ respectful women seriously frowned upon, and for what, for a high that lasted half an hour and left her craving and hungry for the rest of the day. She didn't really see it then, but later on, during her recovery she'd acknowledged with shame she'd raped her self more than she could count.

So being raped by Michael Scofield honestly felt like a fieldtrip to Disney-land compared to all those times. God fucking damn, that man made her swoon with love, even if he raped her. She simply couldn't logically explain that, but she'd long abandoned wanting to think rationally when it came to him.

Oh, she was quite clear on the fact that she would kick him where it hurt, after Lincoln had his turn of course, if he'd ever try to pull that stunt on her again. But right this minute 'being violent' was the last thing on her mind. Instead she sank deeper into his pillow, pressed the phone to her chest and inhaled strongly, greedily savouring every single Michael-molecule she could get, and letting them affect her like a natural anaesthesia, lulling her into a dreamless sleep. A small smile enveloped her lips before she surrendered to the darkness completely. They would beat this crap, together, they would beat the shitty odds that life threw at them, she was sure of it.

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It had been four days since the shit had hit the fan. Four days full of all consuming anger and fear. Anger at Michael for raping Sara, god it still felt so unbelievable unfair and strange to put those words in the same context. But most of all anger for letting it all happen right under his nose, for having that one glass of bourbon too many exactly at the wrong time, putting him in a way too deep sleep to wake from the screams for the first time in months.

He should have seen it coming, he should have paid more attention, instead of thinking everything was fine because of one lousy evening a week on which Michael did something other than sulk. His brother's laughter on those movie nights had made a false corset of safety around his body, but he'd never been so unprotected for a fall than the moment Sara had woken him in the living room, looking like death had run her over.

He didn't even believe her at first. To his own shame he had yelled at her like a mad man, warning her to fucking quit the bullshit, to quit blemishing and humiliating his own brother with her nonsense. The guilt of calling her a lying bitch would lay heavily on his soul for eternity, because the minute he'd screamed it, she'd just broken down howling in the middle of the living room, sinking to the floor like a lifeless doll, leaving her the most undone he'd ever seen her.

Witnessing her like that, sitting crumpled on the floor, with messy hair and wrinkly clothes had tempered his anger gradually. And when he'd looked a little closer and had seen the redness around her wrist and, god, the dried bloodstain on her leg, it felt like someone had punched him in the face, hard. He'd doubled over too, a couple of feet from her and they'd sat there for what felt like hours, she crying and sniffling, he too shocked to move a muscle. But eventually he'd broken out of his daze, and had sprung to life like an eager kid on a sugar high. In a matter of minutes he had her wrapped in a thick blanket and in front of the kitchen sink, with a warm wash cloth in his hand, wiping away the tear marks.

He still couldn't comprehend all that had happened afterwards, from her having to tell him the painful story about the rape, to him being awake for over eighty hours straight looking for his brother, without even feeling tired.

He was still deciding what he would do if he would actually find Michael, strangle him to death after castrating him with his bare hands for doing that to Sara, or strangling him to death with the smothering kisses and hugs he would give him out of pure joy that his brother was alive and protected again in his arms. It was still an ambivalent tie between those two. Sometimes he felt like torturing the first living thing that had the misfortune of crossing his path, preferably Michael's testicles, but sometimes he wanted to kiss the living shit out of someone, anyone, anything, really, when he'd thought he'd seen Michael in the distance. Either way, he wouldn't know until that moment finally arrived, and with every passing hour of futile effort that moment seemed to slip out of his hands faster and faster. But, damn if he would surrender to hopelessness. Life had dealt him a shit load of crappy cards before, and he would rot in hell before he would let these odds overtake them. He'd beaten them before, he would do it again. And with that he picked up his pace and kept on looking anywhere, everywhere for his baby brother.

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Okay evil gleam starts to appear in Mikey's grey-green eyes

I have in my possession the follow-up of this chapter. Oeeee yeaaah (flings her merchandise in the air for all to see). It's juicy, it's lovely, it's all one big Mili and Misa confrontation angstfest !!!!

But I won't post it, no no, I'm evil that way, I'll only post it the minute I have received at least 8 reviews. Oh and you little tykes, don't play 'mister wise guy' on me, multiple reviews aren't allowed, okay they are, but won't be accounted for!!! (MOEHAHA's so hard until a little pee escapes)

See you **soon** , or see you **later** babies, it's all up to you!


	12. Aftermath

Wow peeps, there are some pretty head strong lurkers on this site, but hey, it took you a while but I've got my 8 reviews, and here is my end of the deal, chapter 12 (chapter 11 bis). I send a mega superfragilistic heartwarming hug to those who took the time to review. Riccarda, Lientje, yegbb10, Filou, Sanskrit, Kabel, Heavenlykitten, Matteic and Sillysun. Thank you babies, your feedback made my day(s)!

I hope you won't be disappointed.

**

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****Aftermath **

His name was Lincoln Burrows, and he was an addict. It had been six days and five hours since his last glass of bourbon, but that wasn't what this was all about because frankly, he was sure he would drink the whole damned bottle in one large greedy gulp, if a certain someone would walk into their home right this minute.

He was Lincoln Burrows indeed, and he was certain he'd never been more addicted to anything quite like this. Because, it had been six days and four hours since his brother had left him, cold turkey, and never in his whole life had he needed a fix so desperately than in this moment.

The house was quiet and dark, the only light was that of the muted television in front of him, combined with the soft one-bulb spot in the hallway.

He was jittery, biting his nails, he'd _never _bitten his nails before! Drumming his feet, his hands up and down, left and right, in a maniacal pattern, like he'd only seen his brother do. But, guess what, the Burrows could hold their own next to the Scofields when it came to tapping body extremities for no reason what so ever. He wanted to get out, he needed to be out there, but Sara had bluntly blackmailed him into rest, by threatening to pack her bags and leave if he didn't take a brake for one freaking minute.

Suddenly his whole body stilled, his right middle finger and nail felt frozen between his teeth, and his bare left toes were fixated in the air inches above the wooden floor, stopped in their nervous descent by the most joyous sound he'd ever heard. It wasn't his baby boy's first cry of life seconds after leaving Lisa's womb, it wasn't Sara's voice telling him he was exonerated from all crimes on that boat so long ago, no, it was the sound of a creaking front door. A sound that wasn't there anymore, a sound, he noted with heartbreaking panic, he could have so easily imagined in his jumpy state of mind.

Holy Mary, sweet virgin mother of Jesus, and throw in a God damn too, because there it was again, and now he was certain he hadn't imagined the sound of a closing door. Faster than any 'world record holding'-athlete on steroids he sprang from the coach and sprinted to the hallway that separated the living room from the kitchen, only to be stopped dead in his tracks by seeing the enthralling vision in front of him.

There he was, his baby brother, looking a little, okay a lot, worse for the wear, but apparently as healthy as a newborn. And that was the only thing of importance to him. He looked passed the obvious weight loss Michael had yet again suffered, because honestly, both he and Sara too had lost a couple of pounds in the last week. Sara's lame attempt at brightening his mood, _nothing better to get in shape, than a crash diet of losing the man you love huh, Linc, _had failed to amuse him that morning, but seemed like the best joke_ ever_ right about now.

He also ignored the mother of all bags underneath both his brother's eyes, marring Michael's otherwise handsome face with straining fatigue. He sighed deeply, such a pretty face.

And then there it was, the moment of confrontation he'd both been dreading and anticipating equally strong for the past six days. His eyes bore into Michael's head, impatiently waiting for his brother's gaze to leave the floor and lock with his. Here it came.

The moment his stormy dark green orbs clashed with the guilt-ridden shy turquoise pools of his brother, the breath was knocked out of his chest. He started struggling for air, flaring his nostrils like a bull in heat with every intake. While unearthly joy had consumed him a minute ago, his mind and soul were now being overridden with a multitude of emotions: bone crushing hate towards Sara's aggressor, heart wrenching love for his little brother, pain, fear, hope, everything at once. It was consuming him whole and while he started to tremble, the air in the small hallway suddenly seemed to clatter with electricity.

Michael had noticed his change in demeanour, he was sure of it, because his brother's posture shrank visibly and his eyes became watery, before he lowered them back to the ground shyly.

This was it, which sentiment would win the death match: straggling with raw hands and hate, versus strangling with smothering kisses and love.

Suddenly he advanced menacingly towards Michael. In the most heartbreaking vulnerable gesture he'd ever seen, his brother moved backwards as far as the closed front door would let him while he raised his arms to protect his face from the blow that was to come. That didn't stop him though, and with bruising power he grabbed the back of his brother's neck with his right hand while batting away the defensive barrier of arms brutally with his other one. He pressed his forehead against his brother's, effectively pinning him against the door. They both were breathing deeply, with nostrils flaring and heated puffs of air colliding in between their faces, and they were trembling so hard, it felt like at least one of them was about to crumble.

He saw silent tears start to streak down his brother's cheeks, and to his own astonishment felt his own face grow wet too. He tightened the grip on Michael's neck and the soft whimper that penetrated the silence was almost enough to release him, but he didn't, instead his left hand joined his right in the nape of Michael's neck.

They stood there, like a bull inspecting his pray before attacking, for minutes. At some point he felt his brother steady himself against the pressure by gripping each of his bent arms by the bicep. Without that, he was sure Michael would have crumbled to the floor. His younger brother felt so light and vulnerable in his grip, that yet again, he was close to releasing him, but again he didn't do it. Instead, this time, he said what he should have said weeks ago.

His voice was calm but deadly, "From now on, I call the shots, Mikey. No more silence or brooding or shying away. From now on, we talk, understood?" He hadn't spoken more than twenty words, but he felt truly breathless.

When he didn't receive any sign of comprehension from his brother, he repeated himself, but this time a little louder and strengthened his already bruising grip. "Understood?"

A small nod was all he got, but it was more than enough in his book.

"And if you ever dare to pull that shit on her again, I swear I'll kill you!"

Michael's whole body seemed to deflate under the weight of that statement. Lincoln was barely quick enough to catch his brother in a bone crushing hug before he'd crumble to the floor. He closed his eyes and squeezed his arms so tight around him, he was afraid he'd break his brother right there, but he didn't, Michael was stronger than that. And while he kissed his brother's shoulder repeatedly, throwing in between a volatile but real "I love you", he noted with liberating relief that the smothering option had won.

"She's in the bedroom." And with that he released his brother from his suffocating hug, and steered him towards the staircase. They locked eyes again for just one minute, and with it he transported more than he could ever say with words; that this wasn't over, they needed to talk long and hard and it would get tough, but together, they would get through this.

He saw his brother turn and go up the stairs in slow motion, maybe Michael was so sluggish, steeling himself for yet another life-altering confrontation, or maybe his own exhaustion was finally catching up with him. He didn't know, and cared even less, because he just had time to stroll back to the sofa and lay down his weary body, before the blissful refuge of nothingness threaten to consume him, finally.

He was Lincoln Burrows, older brother of Michael Scofield. And he was damned proud to be an addict. It had been 2 minutes and counting since he'd had his last fix, and nothing, ever, in the whole wide world, could make him feel more deliriously happy than his brother being home and safe again, where he belonged.

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She didn't even have to turn her head away from the window to feel he was home. The dull and musty atmosphere of the room seemed instantly freshened by his appearance in the doorframe, like he was some kind of freaking summer breeze, spreading the scent of blossoms and that addictive musk that was all him. God, how it annoyed her!

She stood from the rocking chair, still not facing him and gazed out of the window for a moment, looking for something in the dark of the night, a sign, an omen, anything really, that would confirm her she was ready for this head on collision. She sighed and straightened her back, overwhelmingly happy she'd finally opted for her own sleeping attire instead of transforming yet again into a Michael-clone this night. She quickly discarded of his wrinkled T-shirt she'd squished between her arms and chest for the better part of the evening and with a last heavy sigh, she turned and strode up to him.

Don't look into the eyes, AVOID THOSE GOD DAMNED PENATRATING EYES!

Her inner mantra was working because, all she saw was dirty jeans and a stained sweatshirt, and than she felt it. Her palm stung from the sudden impact and she felt an up roar in her bloodstream directed at her right hand. Before she knew it she hit him again, square on the left cheek. The sound of her large open palm hitting his flesh with full speed echoed in the room, and it satisfied her in ways she couldn't even begin to describe.

Their eyes collided finally and she was sure she would see shock and a little bit of annoyance in them, but all she witnessed was guilt and shame and remorse, and it angered her to no extent that he wasn't even fighting back.

"THAT, wasn't even for the thing, you thought it was for, because I don't give a flying fuck about that!" She spat in his face.

Confusion joined the remorse in his eyes. Good, confusion was good, anything to get rid of that sodding guilt.

"That's right Michael, I don't give a FUCK! Do you understand me! I've been through a lot worse in my life, believe me, and don't you dare feel guilty about that too, because if I see you take on one more piece of guilt for something you aren't responsible for, I swear I will kick you in the nuts!"

My, My, Mister Lincoln Burrows was rubbing off on her and she didn't, in the least, feel sorry about that.

He looked cornered now, like a scared little boy on his first day of pre-school. But for once it had no alleviating effect on her, it even seemed to fuel her irritation. He clearly hadn't foreseen this, and knowing him, he'd planned this encounter real good, analysing every possible outcome to the tee. Well, she got him there, didn't she? She almost smirked, but resisted with great effort. If he was ever planning to stay with her, he'd better get used to her unpredictable outbursts and rebellious mind.

"Why did you fucking do that, huh?" She was pushing her index finger in his chest like a scolding teacher, and when she saw him flinch she only pushed harder.

"Did you even for a second stop to think about what it would do to us, huh?" Her voice sounded like airborne venom.

"We were going out of our minds for six days, Michael. Six fucking days of searching, of not knowing where you were, or whether you were fine or… or hurt!" Her voice was rising with every syllable.

"Of not knowing if you were still alive. Do you know what that did to Lincoln? To me? Or don't you even care?"

She took pride in hurting him. And while he _did_ seem to be struggling to say something, nothing more than a couple of grunts and whimpers left his throat.

His chin sank lower and lower and his gaze bore a hole in the floor.

She was full blown screaming now "I thought you fucking died Michael! Died, do you understand that? I felt like a fucking widow before we even had the chance to get married! And if Lincoln hadn't locked away the vials of morphine after your recovery, I wouldn't be so lucid to talk to right now. You should feel guilty about that!"

She must have been out of her mind for screaming those last sentences, but it was too late now anyway. It did seem to ground her a little and she turned away from him to catch her breath.

"But… I…I raped you…" His voice stuttered and cracked while he spoke.

The next thing happened without her consent. Maybe she wasn't so fine about what happened between them after all, maybe hearing his soft voice utter those words so vulnerably, finally made it real and not just a horrid nightmare she'd tried all week to forget. Maybe she_ did_ blame Michael after all, instead of those monsters in Sona who'd broken him. She'd known all along those filthy beasts were her real rapists, but maybe now, the frightening image of an uncontrolled Michael, moving above her, inside her, had finally truly penetrated her head. Before her mind had time to catch up, she twisted around on her heels like a regular Rocky and punched him square in the nose as hard as she could.

They both staggered back from the force, and they both doubled over from the pain. Her right hand blazed alive, with her blood setting every nerve-ending on fire. She couldn't help but swear out loud, as pain shot up through her arm and enveloped her whole being.

Suddenly her shocked eyes met his, and the small tears of pain were instantly overridden by the fat ones of remorse. Blood was gushing from his nose, covering his teeth, chin and hoodie. And when she heard the broken "Sara" tumbled from between his bloody lips she was forced to look away.

She didn't hear him retreat quietly, and she didn't feel her heart beating furiously in her abused knuckles. She just stood there, with her back to the door, frozen.

She suddenly blinked, and tried to refocus. How long had she stood here like that? She blinked again and with sullen detachment, she noticed that she was tired, so tired, of all the panic, and anger and godforsaken angst. So she did the only thing her beaten mind could come up with. She stepped out in the hall, and followed the only sound of living in the house. With a quiet demeanour, she slipped into the bathroom.

---------------

He was sitting on the floor in the shower. His back and head leaned against the tiled wall while the water was heavily gushing onto his body. She sucked in a needed breath while staring at him shamelessly. What a sight this man made. His eyes were closed and his features would have looked quite serene if it wasn't for the coppery mess that stained the lower part of his face. His nose would stop bleeding soon, but the water mixing with the blood made it seem like he was loosing gallons of it.

His knees were bent, but still left a good amount of room between his thighs and chest. Again he would have looked relaxed, if it wasn't for the bloody, dirty clothes that were being soaked more and more by the seconds.

She didn't hesitated, she was tired of that, she didn't second guess her choice, she was tired of that too. She just closed the distance between them and stepped next to him into the shower. The cabin was large enough for her to sit next to him, but guess what? She was tired of that too!

So she mustered the boldest move out of her repertoire, and crawled into the space between his chest and thighs, effectively straddling his hips. If he was shocked by her nearness he hid it real good, he just fluttered his eyelids a few times before sighing deeply and shoving his feet a little closer to his body, pressing her closer to his chest.

The water was scalding hot, but it didn't burn, not so much as his body around hers, anyhow, so she didn't care. Her hair was drenched within seconds and soon her tank top started to cling to her chest like second skin. She stared in awe at his face through the waterfall of droplets, blinking furiously to keep the vision of him clear. Unfortunately, sooner rather than later, looking wasn't enough anymore. So she squeezed her thighs firmer around his hips and leaned in closer. So utterly softly she started to caress his face, rubbing away the remains of his blood, clearing those proud cheekbones and that delicious mouth. He winced a little when her fingers touched his swollen nose gently and she winced back guiltily, but it didn't still her hands from wondering, from gracing his cheeks softly, from rubbing her thumb over his lips, over his eyebrows.

The drops of water clung to his eyelashes, making them even longer and darker than they already were and without hesitation she leaned in further and softly kissed the drops away on both of his closed eyes.

A soft whimper left his slightly open mouth and she believed, if he didn't complain about this why not push her luck a little and continue.

She shifted her hips a little, earning an involuntarily groan from them both, and closed in further. It didn't bother her at all, because this had nothing to do with sex or foreplay or anything remotely hot. This was about feeling intimate, about feeling connected, this was the thing she'd desperately been craving for since his return, and all it had taken was for him to rape her? That suddenly seemed like a reasonable enough prise to pay.

The kiss was simple and sweet. No tongue, no head movement, no pressure, just lips on lips. She was careful to avoid his nose, but couldn't deny her hands from cupping his face and caressing his cheeks a little with her thumbs. Her lips parted slightly, inviting his trembling swollen upper lip between them, and the water that had burned her moments ago, now created a soothing liquid blanket around their faces. She pressed a little harder, suddenly feeling dizzy, swallowing his soft groan between her lips. She noticed his body had started to tremble more profoundly, and realised that as overwhelming it was for her, it would be tenfold as powerful and confusing for the scared man before her, so she broke off the kiss gently and hugged him.

His hands timidly fell on both sides of her hips while he pressed his legs closer to his body for the second time, trapping her tighter against him. Erect, braless nipples raised underneath the thin fabric of her top, and rubbed against the heavy soaked material of his hoodie, making her hiss a little, but they didn't really notice. Instead she squeezed harder like she wanted to crawl inside of him for eternity and rested her cheek against his right shoulder.

"I'm tired." she sighed to no one in particular, just a statement, just a fact, just so devastatingly true and implicating much more than only her physical fatigue. For long moments only the sound of falling drops could be heard.

"Me too." It was so soft, and sounded a little funny due to the coursing water, but she'd heard it. A heavy sigh left her lungs, one she had been holding up for months, and she hugged him tighter. Finally, they were communicating.

The cooling water drops kept on enveloping them in a cleansing curtain, slowly washing away the filth that marred both of their souls so heavily.

"I love you, Michael." She mumbled.

She didn't hesitate and didn't want to take it back, even when he didn't return the sentiment. She was just glad it was out there, that he knew. The road ahead promised to be a rocky one, with many deadly traps and lots of difficult trials to overcome. But right now, she just didn't care about all of that. Because all that mattered was _this man_, squeezed save between her legs, and _them _tangled together in this shower-cabin, in a small bathroom in a cheap house somewhere on a godforsaken place on the Panamanian beach, with a brother downstairs who was alive and _finally_ free.

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Hope you all liked it! Chapter 13 is almost finished, I hope to have it up by tomorrow night! 

Toedles Mikey


	13. End of the road

YIHA !!!! Lets get LOUD cause Mikey's in da hows with an update!

I know, I know, this is long overdue, but RL was being a real bitch these past few months, so blame her. But, I come with a big peace-offer, sweeties. Today, and the next few days I'll update plenty of times, so I hope I haven't lost all of my readers here.

I kiss Pemphredo's feet for being the most awesome beta in the world.

Alright enough with the BS, get reading!

X Mike

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End of the road **

Unnerving? No not quite. Unsettling? No, too strong. Uncomfortable? Yes, maybe.

For the past five minutes she'd been silently debating which sentiment best labelled her inner emotion at the moment.

Awkward? Of course, but also not really. Tiring? Her dead-beat soul wasn't arguing with that, right? Confusing? Well hello to you Mister Understatement. Difficult? No, no, it may seem that way, but all in all, when stripped of all the unnecessary complicating crap, it was nothing more than simple.

She sighed deeply and was about to give up when suddenly the brightest light bulb seemed to switch on inside her head.

Weird? Yes! Definitely weird! She felt weird! This situation felt weird, Michael felt weird. The bed, the room's temperature, the look on his face, the ice pack in her hands, everything. It all just floated between feeling strange to downright bizarre.

She sighed and tried to make sense of the past couple of hours. After his return, they'd stayed locked together in the shower for over half an hour, but eventually the cold spray of water and freezing sticky clothes had forced them out of their intimate embrace. Without losing time she'd fetched a sullen looking Michael a new set of clothes, ordering him softly to get changed while she'd do the same and get an ice pack for his injured nose. And so here they were, sitting on the edge of the bed facing each other, with dry and soft clothes warming their bodies, while she pressed a cool ice pack gently against his face.

Weird. Yes, it all felt so undeniably weird. Her earlier boldness had abandoned her the minute she left Michael alone in search of the ice pack. It wasn't that she felt regret for being so daring and embracing him like that. For kissing him? No, she definitely wasn't sorry about that, because the feeling of his warm body wrapped around hers while his soft lips touched hers had soothed her soul in more ways than she could describe. But now, in retrospect, she couldn't understand where that courageous attitude had come from, because all that was left of it was, well, nothing.

The occasional sigh or pained whimper broke the silence, but except for that and the whispered _sit down_ and _lean forward_ nothing had been said between them. The silence however wasn't uncomfortable. They just sat there, watching each other through surprisingly tranquil eyes, quietly observing each other's face and movements. She honestly didn't know what to make of all of it, and she was sure Michael felt the same, because there was no sign of nervousness or confusion in his eyes, just tiredness, just bone crushing exhaustion. She concluded they were numb, no pain, no guilt, no love, just numb. But hey, they were numb together, that had to count for something, right?

They kept on staring at each other, and the gaze fest would have continued if it wasn't for the slight droop in Michael's lids. He was obviously fighting to stay awake, but in true Scofield-style would never admit to it. So she let him struggle against his weariness for another few minutes before she broke the silence.

She tilted the cold pack away from his face, effectively drawing his exhausted eyes back to hers. "You should sleep." She inwardly patted herself, because the mention of sleep alone had brightened up his tired features like he had already slept for days in a row.

Without much fight he crawled under the covers and laid his weary body down. She cast a last look his way and wondered how a six-feet tall man could look so small in that bed, before she turned around and walked towards the door. A slight rustle of sheets made her stop and turn around again. He was still lying down on his back, but he was leaning on both elbows, so his head and shoulders were upright and lifted from the bed. She was about to ask what was wrong, when her eyes locked with his.

His eyes were wide as saucers and filled with fear and panic. Her face scrunched up with confusion. How could tiredness and numbness transform into this in only a few seconds? A soft grunt escaped his mouth, like he was trying to say something, but decided against it at the last minute. She was missing out on something here while those frightened orbs kept screaming at her to understand. But after a few seconds he broke contact with a defeated sigh and laid back down with his back turned to her. "Sleep tight."

That soft whisper was all it took for her to understand. _Sleep tight_. There was only one way for her to sleep tight that night, and it had nothing to do with a bumpy couch or Lincoln's presence. No, all it took was right here in this very room and apparently Michael felt the same. He needed her by his side and he had screamed it with his eyes so desperately. A tired smile lifted her lips slightly, oh, she was beginning to love this new-found communication between them.

So she killed the light, leaving the room in a much softer moonlight-induced ambience, closed the door and walked around to the right side of the bed. She climbed onto it while watching his reaction and couldn't stop the flutter from spreading in her belly after seeing his eyes spring open with both shock and relief. She shifted closer to his body and took her time to rearrange the covers and her pillow, knowing full well he was watching her every move with amazement. Amazed that she wasn't running, that she'd understood his fear and stayed here to soothe him.

Finally she lay on her side, facing him, with only a couple of inches between them. The gaze fest was on again. Chocolate eyes sought out his green ones, watching how his long lashes flickered tranquilly, and how his soft lips fell open slightly. In an almost synchronised move they both tucked their arms under the blanket and pulled it up all the way to their chins so only their heads were sticking out, all the time keeping eye contact.

Shouldn't the normalcy of it have freaked her out by now? Yes, of course! Then why didn't she feel anything besides contentment? Why were they both acting like the past couple of months hadn't happened. Why did it feel like they were an untroubled couple cuddling together on a cold Chicago winter night, instead of a rapist and his victim trapped together under a stuffy duvet in a house in the middle of sultry-Panamanian-nowhere. God, rapist, connecting that word with Michael still made her shudder. She trembled visibly and pulled her feet a little closer to her body, to chase away the mental coldness.

"You cold?" His hot whispered breath hit her face, warming her better than any heavy blanket could.

She shrugged and ducked her head deeper into the covers, almost disappearing completely but still not breaking eye contact. "My feet are freezing."

Minutes of silence past after that. The staring contest would surely end in favour of Michael because her lids suddenly seemed to weigh a ton. She was rapidly entering the state where you thought you closed your eyes for only a few seconds but in fact you shut them for five minutes. But she wouldn't be a sore loser in this game, because the healing slumber she had unsuccessfully sought the last few days was finally within reach.

Suddenly she felt Michael's feet make contact with hers. It was one simple touch, but it woke her more effectively than any adrenaline shot to the heart could ever do. Her eyes shot open widely and she couldn't hide the shock in them when she locked eyes with him.

He withdrew his feet immediately, mistaking her shock for fear, while he stumbled into an incoherent apology. "I'm sorry...I didn't mean...I mean, I meant for it...to be...if you're not ready...I'm sorry...but you said your feet were cold and..." His voice died out and he lowered his gaze shyly.

She had to bury her head deeper into the covers to hide her smile at the cuteness that was Michael Scofield at that moment. If it wasn't for the dark of the night she was sure she would have seen a rather dark blush on his cheeks as companion to that boyish nervous ramble.

But she hid her smile well, and bit back her giggle, because she understood the importance of this seemingly harmless situation. There was no room for misinterpretation and miscommunication if they were ever going to do this healing thing right. So she stretched out her legs and eagerly sought out his withdrawn feet. She hooked her left foot around his calves and dragged his legs closer to her body. When she was satisfied with their proximity, she cuddled her feet with his, wiggling them around to find the perfect position. After a few seconds she settled on her right foot jammed between his two larger ones while her left one covered the whole of them.

God, he felt so warm, and when he started to curl his toes around her feet too and his shy eyes collided with her amused ones, she couldn't stop the satisfying sigh from leaving her mouth. Those extremities were not feet, no, they were godsend heaters, her own personal heaters. Oh, those would come in handy this winter.

Weird, yes, definitely weird. There was no other word to describe all of this. They were on the brink of entering the most emotional, heartbreaking time in their relationship, and she was thinking of warm feet on winter nights. Figures!

Heartbreak, frustration, probably lots of shouting, retelling of horrid tales, guilt, remorse, it all lay waiting just around the corner, and what was she concerned about? That she caressed his foot with her own softly and lovingly over the spot of his missing toes, so he would understand clearly that it didn't bother her at all, and that it certainly didn't make him a freak or an outcast, so he should just quit feeling that way. Bizarre, really!

But she wasn't concerned about the weirdness of it all. Maybe this strange momentary refuge from guilt and pain was 'The Powers That Be' way of making them ready for what was to come. Because she imagined this showdown wasn't going to be pretty. So who was she to decline such an offer, and with that she locked eyes with Michael for the last time, squeezed his feet softly and closed her eyes to enter that offered sweet oblivion.

----------------

The night had come and gone, leaving all three of them reasonably rested. Next showering had come and gone too, leaving all three of them revitalised and smelling good. And finally lunch had finalised the deal, leaving all three of them satisfied and with the needed energy to rise to the occasion. But the occasion hadn't taken place because no communication, or any conversation, or any words what so ever, had come yet. Instead the house had been bathed in complete silence since they'd woken up.

A multitude of nervous glances had been exchanged, fingertips felt rough from all the patting they'd done and throats hurt from all the heavy sighs that had past through them. And with the lack of words all those things only seemed to add to the feeling of anxious anticipation that was growing in all three of them.

Now, on this Tuesday at five pm in the afternoon, seven days after the fateful events had taken place, all three of them were sitting in the living room in silence, awaiting something entirely different than movie-classics night. They'd postponed it for the better part of the day, but now 'The talk' was finally going to happen. Of course someone actually had to open his mouth first, and judging from the previous five minutes of eerie silence, Sara wasn't sure that would happen soon.

"Well, this is awkward." She rolled her eyes and sighed. When all hope was lost and all means were used, just leave it up to Lincoln Burrows to state the obvious.

The silence, however, continued.

"Okayyyyy...Does this mean I should begin?" Lincoln asked rhetorically.

"Well, fine! I want to lay down some ground rules in this house people. First, those stupid locks you've installed Michael, they've got to go. If I don't see them in the trash by tomorrow morning, I swear I will unhinge the whole freaking door myself. Alright? Secondly, and I told you this already, but I'm gonna repeat it so you won't forget, enough with the brooding face. From now on you talk to us about what's bothering you. If you have a nightmare I want to know every sordid detail of it, if you feel angry or frustrated, you deal with me, okay Michael, ME! No one else. You shout, punch and swear all the fuck you want, but you do it with me!"

Oh boy, Lincoln was on a roll here. He'd started out calm, but the more he said the more determined he sounded. She saw him begin to gesticulate wildly with his hands, a sure sign that he meant business, and she could only stare wide-eyed while he continued.

"Thirdly, I talked to Jane this morning, and she gave me the address and phone number of a psychologist in Panama City. It's a three hour drive but you are to attend her clinic at least once a week. At least! She will report to me every single time bro, so don't even think about doing a Scofield on her, 'cause even if you miss only five minutes of your appointment, I will know about it, understand?"

Her nervous gaze shifted from the older to the younger brother, who looked like a deer caught in the headlights. He was shaking visibly, trying to take in everything his brother was saying, and she suddenly didn't think this was a good idea anymore. After months of keeping it all in, this had to be quite a shock to his system, maybe he wasn't ready for such dramatic changes. Lincoln was coming on too strongly, like a teacher scolding a student, without leaving room for discussion. She knew he did the best he could, approaching the problem the only way he knew of, with brutal force, but maybe a little bit more consideration would have been better in this case.

"Lincoln," she tried to intervene but to no avail.

"She's supposed to be real good in handling PTSD-cases. I googled her and she has all these fancy degrees and stuff, so she knows her shit Michael, so she will be able to help you!" He'd stood up from the sofa and was now pacing the living floor in front of the television.

Suddenly he stopped and tensed visibly. She knew what was coming, but was she ready catch both their reactions again. "And finally," he turned around and assaulted Michael with his death stare. She swore she felt the air in the room charge with electric current when the brothers locked eyes. "Michael, If you ever again, as long as I walk this earth, lift one wrong finger her way, I will cut off your balls and make you eat them, And I just _know_ you know I'm not kidding."

The scary thing was, she knew that too.

She slowly moved her head to look at Michael and what she saw made her even more nervous. He was still trembling profoundly, but now he was squirming too, like the sofa underneath him was flaming hot and he had to shift constantly not to burn his skin. He was pulling at the hem of his shirt's sleeve again too, an act she'd seen him do throughout the day. Trying to cover his tattoos, to wish them away so desperately he couldn't even look at one sliver of green and blue. She didn't understand how it was still possible but her heart broke again for him.

All eyes were on him, anticipating and anxiously awaiting his reaction, but all he did was squirm and pull at his sleeve. Lincoln's harsh puffs of air were deafening and her heart was beating in her ears so hard she feared her eardrums would tear, but Michael's silence was still all she heard. Suddenly a sharp noise penetrated the silence and three pairs of eyes were drawn to Michael's right hand in which the fabric of his left sleeve was still forcefully clutched. He'd tugged so hard at the textile of his shirt, trying in vain to cover the whole of his left hand, that the fabric had voiced his protest with a loud tearing sound.

She frowned, something was off but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She tried to re-evaluate the situation in front of her but was soon distracted by his trembling voice breaking the silence.

"And what if I refuse?"

"What?" Lincoln's instant reply was so unmanly high-pitched it would have made her giggle like a schoolgirl, but she was so dumbstruck by what Michael had implied, only an unintelligent grunt left her mouth.

"Boy, I just know I heard you wrong!" The shrillness of his earlier reply was in deep contrast with how low and menacing Lincoln now sounded.

She started to shake her head a little. No, he couldn't mean what she thought he meant, could he? The notion of him trying to hurt her that way, again, sounded so ridiculous, but either way she couldn't stop the nauseating fear spreading in her belly.

She'd tried to prepare herself for this showdown all day long, but she feared nothing could have geared her up properly for this, because honestly, _this_, was going to get ugly, real soon!

* * *

Chapter End Notes:

Voila, the ugliness will come to you real soon, like say, this afternoon or evening. EEEEEEEEE! Two updates in one day!

I will be here happily typing away at some long overdue replies to the wonderful reviews you've left me in the past, so don't mind dropping a line if you feel like it! See, no begging, how very mature of me. I know I gave you footsex and that's so worthy of a review, coughhintcoughhint, but no, no, I will not beg! smirks

Xxxx Mie


	14. Blowing away Part 1

**Okay:** One of my loyal reviewers, the super fabulistic Nika, brought my attention to this particular song that she felt portrayed the emotion behind the latest chapters wonderfully. And I have to say, I totally agree with her!

So babes, work with me here. Open a new internet-window, go to youtube, search for **it's not over daughtry**, and click on the first hit ... (WTF, this video has been removed due to terms of use violation...oh crap!) Okay, scroll down a little and click on any video that features the song, like the forth video or something, just DON'T pick any live or acoustic version.

Okay, turn up the volume and close your eyes and think about Michael, Sara and Linc in WFA at this moment!

Do you feel it babies, do you feel the vibe, well get on reading then! SHOO!

ENJOY!!!!

PSS: Lots of stars for Pemphredo who has her hands full with me, but is truly the most awesome Beta-mommy out there! And for RDG too, 'cause me misses her very much.

**

* * *

Blowing away (Part One)**

Lincoln tensed and started to approach Michael slowly, but stopped abruptly when his brother jumped from the couch. She really hadn't wanted to, but her instincts had kicked in the second he'd pushed himself erect. A sudden surge of fright had made her jump upright too and step backwards. She wanted to scream that she wasn't afraid of him, but her bodily actions conveyed a very different story. It felt like her mind knew the difference between the two but her body couldn't yet distinguish Michael from the man who'd raped her.

After her initial shock had passed she watched him carefully. She didn't know why he had answered so eagerly, but he had obviously realized the misunderstanding his question had created, because he'd clearly jumped up out of panic, with his eyes impossibly wide and full of pain, eager to explain what he'd really meant.

She cursed inwardly because her shying away like that must have felt like another blow to his already swollen nose. What happened next only confirmed her fears because his eyes glazed over with unshed tears and he looked away from them for a second to compose himself.

"It wasn't about...about that, I mean," The desperation lined his face and his hands came up in defence "I...I'm sorry... It wasn't about that."

They all visibly calmed a little but they kept on standing while Michael continued. "I meant, what if I won't go to the doctor? What if I refuse to talk about Sona?"

"Mike, you went to a psychologist all your life up to Fox River. You know it's good for you, that they can help you to cope with all of this. You know, with your condition and stuff."

"Linc." The name left his mouth in an urgent desperate plea, before he shifted his anguished eyes to her for a moment. She couldn't believe him, after all they'd been through he was still pleading with his brother to stop talking about his past, about who he was, in front of her. It was as if he was ashamed of it and was afraid that she'd bail the minute she realized what a screwed up person he really was.

"No Michael, I won't budge on this one, you're going to that chic and you're going to talk about what happened. I won't let you bottle it up and have a meltdown again. You're gonna talk, even if I have to drag you there myself and strap you to that chair."

She saw Michael's body tense while Lincoln prepared himself for another set of forceful statements, and felt she had to intervene.

"Michael," Her soft and calm voice drew his attention "maybe this doctor can help you with dealing with this trauma. She can show you ways to relieve the stress. You don't have to tell her everything, just a little bit."

His troubled eyes portrayed the inner struggle he was having. Should he give in to their request or should he stand his ground?

"Michael?" She pleaded again.

"I... can't." He whispered while a few tears broke through his barrier and slipped down his cheeks. "You have to understand... the things that happened...I...I just can't."

Her heart cracked a little more seeing Michael so fearful and his spirit so broken. She knew pushing him was not helping and hoped Lincoln could see it too and end his verbal onslaught. Unfortunately Lincoln had something entirely different in mind.

"Michael, bro, you have to, it's eating you alive. And if you keep going like this, who's to say something like last week won't happen again? Do you want that to happen again Michael? Do you?"

Michael flinched like he'd been slapped and backed away from them. She wanted to slap Lincoln for that comment. That was such a low blow. And Lincoln looked as smug as could be expected in this kind of situation, like he was slapping himself on the back for finding the words that would finally get through to his brother. This realisation made her blood boil with a combination of frustration and fear.

Michael backed away further. "Please, Linc, don't make me tell, I can't talk about it."

Lincoln moved in closer "Yes you can, Mike, you have to let it out."

Michael's back was almost pressed against the French window "I've found a way to let it out, Linc. I promise, it won't happen again. I can cope now." He sounded so afraid and desperate, it almost distracted her enough to forget about what he'd just said, almost.

With no more room to back away, Lincoln was able to close the distance between him and his brother. "I told you. NO more fleeing this time. No more lying. You're going to that doc!" He was getting angry and it was transferring a little to his younger brother because the next words that came out of Michael's mouth were stronger and more determined than the previous frantic whispers.

"I said, I can handle it now, I will cope on my own!"

"Mike." The warning in Lincoln's voice was so low and deadly it made goosebumps appear on her arms.

"I won't go!" The younger brother countered with less controlled emotions.

"You will!" Oh boy, Lincoln had _time bomb_ written all over his face.

"I won't!" Crazy deluded 'lets pull the pin out of the grenade' Michael countered again.

She felt like a spectator at a tennis match, constantly shifting her gaze from one brother to the other.

"Mike! YOU WILL!" In different circumstances, she would be amused beyond belief right now, because these two adult men in front of her had forsaken all their 'mature conversation' skills in a matter of minutes. But she wasn't amused in the least, in fact, she was scared to death because this bomb was going to blow any second now.

"No!" He hadn't exactly screamed but his negation had sounded loud and persistent enough to make Lincoln stop.

For a second she felt exuberated, seeing Michael stand up against Lincoln, with his posture straight and his head held up high. Seeing his eyes in particular elated her enormously. They were on fire, burning with strength and stubborn determination which overshadowed the guilt and pain momentarily. She liked what she saw, but the situation, of course, was too dire for her joy to surpass the well-known dread in her stomach for long.

Suddenly Michael started striding towards the passageway between their living room and the hall way, but Lincoln was hot on his heels instantly.

"Oh no you don't, you're not running away from this!" With five large steps he'd caught up with his brother and in an uncontrolled manner he grabbed Michael's left forearm in a vice grip and yanked him backwards forcefully to stop him from walking out.

A sudden heartbreaking scream filled the room and it made all three of them stagger back visibly. Lincoln released his brother's arm at once and Michael immediately clutched it protectively against his chest. She saw no sign of the previous anger when her concerned eyes fell on both brothers. They looked truly miserable. Michael's face was contorted with pain as unshed _tears_ were gathering to fall, while Lincoln looked confused, guilty and shocked.

"Mikey...I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...I didn't mean to do it so hard!" Lincoln pleaded desperately while approaching his brother timidly.

"It's okay." The words sounded a little slurred and she didn't believe him one bit, because he kept on backing away from Lincoln instinctively, which made the older brother stop and put his hands up in surrender.

God, they both looked so crushed and she wanted nothing more than to hug them silly.

For a few moments their harsh breathing was the only thing that resonated in the living room, but suddenly Lincoln's heavy voice broke the silence "Michael."

She frowned and looked at Lincoln. Where had the guilt and confusion gone, and why did he _now_ look the most threatening she'd ever seen him, with fire blazing in his eyes and fingers that twitched alive, eager to hurt something.

"Michael. Let me see!"

Why was she suddenly afraid of Lincoln?

She heard a couple of broken whimpers from Michael but couldn't stop looking at the other brother while she inched closer to him.

"Michael?" So low and deadly, it made her shiver.

"Please Linc,...I...I had to let it out." So frightened and frantic.

What the fuck was going on here? She was clueless and she hated it. She wanted to scream until the windows rattled for them to tell her what she was missing out on. Suddenly she noted that Lincoln's stare was fixed much lower than Michael's face. What the hell was he looking at? She followed his gaze until her eyes fell on Michael's heaving chest, and his arms clutched against it, and his right hand busily trying to cover up the bloodstained sleeve of his left arm, and his rumpled t-shirt, and his, wait a minute.

"What the hell!" There was no time for elegance when all she saw was dark red spots appear on light grey fabric.

"Linc, I can cope now ... please understand... I just had to... let it out...it was killing us." Michael whimpered on, but she was too transfixed by the red to notice.

Suddenly Lincoln propelled himself towards Michael, who tried to escape but was blocked within seconds by his older brother.

"Let me see!" He sounded more frantic now, while he was trying to get a hold of Michael's hand, which didn't look like an easy task with the younger man twisting and turning to get away.

"No! It's filth Lincoln, don't touch me." Even this heartbroken whisper wasn't enough to bring her back from her paralysed state.

"MICHAEL!" They were struggling for real now. Michael's pained cries finally made her able to move towards them, but ultimately she could do nothing more than watch as they both struggled to get a hold of his left arm.

Michael was obviously out of control while he tried resisting against his brother, who, in his turn, looked torn between using brutal force and being as gentle as he could to attain what he wanted. But when Michael half started to sob while saying _he had to cut the filth out_ over and over again, she couldn't hold back her own sobs anymore. This was horrid, truly horrifying! She was almost full blown crying within seconds, she tried to control it but the tears just kept on coming. She wanted feet cuddles and shower embraces, not bloodstained shirts and swollen noses, she wanted 'yippikaye's' and boyish high fives on movie night, not watching these two broken men fight and hurt each other.

Then, like a horror movie playing in slow motion, she saw Lincoln finally succeeding in grabbing Michael's hand, while stretching his arm in the same movement and pushing the sleeve up with his other hand.

The sight that was uncovered seemed to burn her retina and made her stop crying immediately. Her mouth dropped open in silent shock and her eyes felt like they were going to explode. The two men stood frozen like statues in front of her. Michael was a little hunched over, crippled by exhaustion from the struggle and mortification that they'd found out his secret, while a horrified Lincoln was still gripping his brother's hand and stretching their joined arms in between them. Three pairs of eyes were fixed on the massacre on Michael's arm. Old and fresh cuts, a multitude of dark crusts mixed with reopened bloody trails, swollen and red skin, so many scars, too many. All she could think of was _too many_.

"Mikey..." Lincoln's voice sounded exactly like she felt, desperate and stupefied.

"I had to Lincoln. It was killing me." While whispering it she saw his fingers softly fall out of Lincoln's paralysed hand as he started backing away slowly to leave the living room.

Moments passed before they heard the front door click shut. This sound seemed to wake them from their dazed stupor. They both shifted their gaze from the place where Michael had disappeared from their sight, to lock eyes with each other. She didn't need words to know what they both were thinking. _What the hell just happened?_ And then after she saw Lincoln's eyes widen simultaneously with hers. _He's getting away! _

Before she had time to think about it, she was running towards the front door with Lincoln hot on her trail. If Michael seriously thought he could disappear like that after dumping that on them, he had another thing coming!

----------------------------------

"Michael!" They both screamed at the same time while running towards him on the beach. He wasn't running away but he didn't stop walking either.

"Michael!" They tried again, and this time he stopped and turned towards them. He let out a deep sigh and she saw a sliver of disappointment pass through his eyes. Had he really thought they would just drop the matter?

"What?" He couldn't hide the annoyance from entering his voice.

"What do you mean WHAT!" Lincoln asked incredulously "You can't just drop something like that on us, and expect us to be fine with it! I mean, have you even looked at the war that's raging on your arm?"

"Please Michael, you have to let me take a look at those cuts. Some of them look infected. You could get sick because of that, and the scars, some of those wounds need stitching or they won't heal properly." She knew she was babbling, but she really didn't care. She had to get through to him.

"Michael please, this is exactly why you have to go to that doctor lady. She can help you deal with with all of this. You cutting yourself isn't healthy." Lincoln was only a few feet away from Michael now. "Please, Mikey." All their desperate pleading seemed to be working, because he'd stopped backing away from them.

God he looked terrible and heavenly at the same time and she had to swallow hard to keep it together while looking at him. His jeans hung low on his hips because of the little weight loss he'd suffered, but she still wanted nothing more than to straddle those hips.

Her eyes moved downwards along his lean legs to stop at his sock-covered feet. He hadn't even taken the time to put his shoes on while leaving the house but she didn't mind at all, because she could picture his beautiful warm feet much better with his boots off. She was pretty sure she would sell one of her own kidneys to be able to cuddle her feet with his right this minute.

His long sleeved shirt was crumpled from the struggle but it still fit in all the right places, doing justice to his broad shoulders and his trim waist.

His exposed forearm hung limply beside his body, gravity's pull on the droplets of blood had created fine red lines that continued past his wrist and onto his knuckles and fingers. The dried-up streaks of blood made his lean fingers look even longer, impossibly long, heavenly long. And though she should feel ashamed and dirty for forgiving him so easily, she already wanted to feel those fingers on her body again, squeezing her, caressing her, moving inside of her.

And then his face, god that face, it was slightly red from crying and marred by sticky dried up tear-marks, his nose showed a nasty swelling, and on top of that his eyes looked muddled by both unshed tears and turbid feelings, but god, _stunning_ was the only word doing his face justice at the moment. Seriously, absolutely stunning.

She broke out of her reverie on hearing his soft voice. "Please Linc...Sara, don't make me tell about Sona. The things that happened... god, I just don't want to think about it, let alone talk about it. Just give me some more time, I'll get over it, I promise, I'll find a way."

Oh, she was ready to submit alright, she would give him a life time to get over it, really. His both divine and dishevelled appearance had already weakened her commitment to make him talk, but it was the brokenness of his stammering voice that sealed the deal.

"I can't allow that Michael." She was torn between wanting to slap Lincoln for his stubborn persistence and hug him for his determination to fix his little brother. She didn't know their history together, and to her it seemed like Lincoln was pushing too hard, but maybe, hopefully, this was the way to go to break down Michael's obstinate defences. She'd learned to trust Lincoln with her life, so maybe she should have a little faith in him.

"You have to understand that it's no longer me and you, Mike. You're not my only concern in this matter anymore. We need to fix this bro, if we ever want to get out of this shit, then we need to fix this, we need to fix..." Lincoln hesitated slightly, trying to rephrase what he'd almost said but Michael beat him to it. "Me... you need to fix...me."

She didn't dare speak, still slightly dazed by what Lincoln had implied, that she was irrevocably part of their family now, and Lincoln's silence too only affirmed Michael's statement. His head dipped in defeat, and his shy eyes lowered to the ground where his left foot started to draw small circles on the powdery sand.

She forced a heavy sigh from her lungs. Was this the turning point? Were they finally where they needed to be to stop all the anguish?

"You're gonna hate me Linc. You're gonna think I'm nothing but a pathetic coward. I've always been weak, but I fought it Linc, I swear, I fought it, like you've shown me, you've got to believe me... but they were too strong."

These brothers had no idea what so ever how much love they had for each other. Just seeing them standing there only a couple of feet from each other, with so much desperation to fix one another oozing from their body, made her chest squeeze tighter and tighter each passing second.

Tall, gentle and graceful versus buff, rough and straightforward. She too had been fooled by their obvious differences, but deep down they were so much alike. They both were hopelessly devoted to each other, and they both thought they weren't worthy of that kind of adoration. She just couldn't fathom how they couldn't see that.

"_What_ ... are you talking about? Michael, seriously. You're THE strongest man I know. You stood up against the mob fearlessly, you got beaten up without giving a sound, you fought against countless bastards, Kellerman, Mahone, Bellick, T-bag." With every name he tabbed a different finger to amplify his speech, "and you won, man, YOU WON!"

"For crying out loud, Abruzzi cut off your freaking toes, and you still wouldn't budge! And you did it all for me, for ME! Do you understand that! You gave up your life for a slob like me. While everybody had dropped me like a bag of crap, you made me promise I hadn't killed Steadman. I did and that was it, just like that, two fucking words and you believed me! Nobody anywhere, has done something amazing like that for anyone! But YOU did it for ME! You're my fucking hero, brother. And if you think I'm just gonna let you grovel and suffocate in your own guilt, than you have vastly underestimated me!"

She'd already realised that she wasn't going to be a very active participant in this confrontation. Sure, the rape-part would be her load to bear, but the more she observed the brothers the more she understood that this went way deeper for the both of them. This rollercoaster-ride had started years before she even considered buying a ticket for it, and although she'd worked her way up to the front seat over the past months, she ultimately still was a spectator. Therefore she tried to sit back and watch it all unfold before her eyes.

"And fuck Mike, Sona? Surviving that place alone is the bravest thing anyone could ever hope to achieve. Nobody comes out of there alive, but YOU did bro, you proved them all wrong. And god, man, I don't even want to consider what it would do to me if I got raped, I would die, honestly..."

She wasn't even surprised when those words left Lincoln's mouth and she didn't blame him in the least. They had both tried so hard to be ready for this confrontation, but they couldn't have foreseen the turmoil of emotions that would hit them so fast and so hard. Lincoln, in all his determination and anxiousness to help Michael, hadn't even seem to notice he'd given away their big secret until he saw his brother's eyes widen with disbelief.

"What?" The look of horror on Michael's face ignited the fire of dread in her stomach again with a vengeance.

Lincoln cursed himself out loud before glancing her way for a second, silently pleading for help. She shook her head slightly, feeling the first signs of heartburn creeping up her chest. They couldn't lie, if they wanted him to let it all out, they had to come clean too. She knew this conversation was about to go monumental awry, but there really was no turning back now.

* * *

Chapter End Notes:

The ugliness will continue and end (hopefully) in the next chapter?

Xxx Mikey


	15. Blowing away Part 2

Author's Chapter Notes:

I have six things to say about me winning the award of best work in progress!

1)WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

2) I'm still too freaking flabbergasted, dumbfounded, amazed, taken aback, astounded, shocked, stunned, astonished, dazed, surprised, overwhelmed, staggered, gobsmacked, and twenty fucking other words for that emotion after seeing my name next to that fan fic award, to tell you all in a sane way what that means to me. I'll try again when I have calmed down a little, lets say, in a month or two! Deal?

3) What my mouth can't do, my body sure will, so to all you guys who are sticking by me with this story and/or you who nominated WFA, and/or you who voted for WFA. I advise you to take cover real soon, 'cause I'm seconds away from chasing you all and smother you to death with all my sloppy thankyou-kisses!

4) WIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

5) The award of best beta goes to... it's a tie: Pemphredo and RDG!!!!! confetties everybody that comes near her

6) EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, hihi, no, not WIEEEEE, EEEEEEEEEEE duhs that's like a whole other sound! giggles

This is dedicated to my two older brothers! They are my personal Lincoln and Michael, and please get your mind out of the gutter. I don't dream of a love-sandwich with them eeuw's that's reserved for the real PB-bros. But what I meant was: they are my muse for this story as much as Lincoln Burrows and Michael Scofield themselves are. They too have the strangest way of showing their love for each other. I love them to death, they are my protectors, and the reason I turned out so well (I think) is because they were there to give me "da bomb" of a childhood!

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Blowing away(part 2)**

"Uh,... Mike... uh... we kinda figured... uh... I mean... we knew you got... uh... raped in that place." Lincoln's stuttering only seemed to put more stress on that one dreadful word, and when it finally came out of his mouth it seemed to knock Michael in the head, because he staggered back slightly, as if in a daze, while his right hand came up to rub over his shaven head and neck.

The silence that followed unnerved her somewhat, but it was the whispered disbelieving '_how?'_ thatmultiplied the feeling of panic in her stomach tenfold.

She cursed under her breath when Lincoln pointed both his index-fingers eagerly her way without delay. Coward! "She saw you in the shower the day after you'd come back. She saw the teeth marks, and she saw the, the blood, and she,... it wasn't difficult for her to put two and two together after that."

Articulate Lincoln had returned a tad too early for her liking, and she would have bitch slapped his eager ass in front of his younger brother, if he'd mentioned the word 'she' one more time. This was a _typical man_ for you, heck, this was _any man_ for you, when things got tough they couldn't flee fast enough and leave the woman to deal with all the shit. Coward! Fine, _she_ too didn't want to take the heat, but she would stay and stand her ground. That's right! Those disarming haunted eyes that were now looking her way with the first signs of betrayal in them, were not going to stop her. His shaking form was not going to derail her from being a real woman.

_Ohgodohgodohgod_, would it be all too awkward if she would just turn around and sprint away from them? Coward!

As it turned out she didn't have to choose between fleeing or staying, because Michael made that choice for her.

"You mean, you knew about it from the beginning. You knew what I've been through... and ... you didn't tell me!" She was forced to lower her eyes after hearing the accusation in his trembling voice.

"Michael, I didn't know how to deal with it... I mean, you were in such a bad place physically, it just wasn't the right time, and ..." He interrupted her soft excuse incredulously.

"And _now_ is the right time? After all the shit that's happened, _now_ you tell me. You had two fucking months Sara! Do you have any idea what it did to me? How hard it was to keep that blackness inside? And you knew all along! God, do you know how humiliated I feel?" She wondered for a second how the tables had turned so quickly. A minute ago he had been a whimpering mess, but now the anger and betrayal were escaping out of his every pore, and even though she had seen the uncontrolled Michael a week ago, she still found it unsettling when he was cursing like that. Michael just _didn't_ curse.

"Now, let me stop you right there, Mike," She sighed with relief as she saw coward Lincoln come stand in front of her, like a human shield against the wrath of his brother. Lincoln, her hero!

"You can not hold this against us. We _both_ decided it was for the best to let YOU come to US. We didn't want to force this on you 'cause you'd had a tough enough time already. This was no picnic for us too, Mike, having to see you suffer like that, wanting to help you while you kept on pushing us away."

"Oh, so now it's my fault?" She knew people sometimes said crazy stuff while high on anger and frustration, but that statement was too ridiculous for words. This wasn't about who was to blame, no one was at fault here! They were focussing on the wrong thing, why couldn't he just see that?

"I'm not saying that. You just have to understand that it was equally hard for us to keep it from you, than for you to keep it from us. We tried to persuade you to talk about it, but you wouldn't let us help you, Michael. How the fuck are you supposed to get better, if you won't let either of us in?" Lincoln's heated response to Michael's anger was to be expected, because suddenly, next to being brothers, they'd become competitors in a struggle to be the alpha-male.

"Equally hard, equally hard?" Michael practically screamed.

She'd thought she'd seen some pretty messed up scenes today, but she guessed this livid Michael would soon prove her wrong. The proverbial shit was about to hit the fan, real good.

"Do you wake every night, covered in sweat with your heart beating so hard you're afraid it's gonna break through your chest. Do you feel the droplets of filthy come dripping from your ass whenever you take a walk, and do you taste the semen on your tongue whenever you eat something, 'cause let me tell you, I feel and taste that every fucking day! That's right Lincoln, they fucked me good in there!"

The sudden outburst had quietened down Lincoln at once, while his baby brother only seemed to get louder with each passing word. "Do you know how the low moans and heavy strokes and shudders of those beasts entering you from behind can cripple you so much you can't even fight back?"

She hadn't even realised she'd started to cry, too distracted by the tirade this distraught Michael had lunged into, but soon she felt the heavy salty drops burn her cheeks. He was trembling so hard she was afraid he'd topple over in the sand, but he wouldn't be alone down there, because her legs wouldn't be able to support her much longer. He was screaming so loud and uncontrollably now, that his voice sometimes deformed into a high-pitch sound, and every time that happened she felt like he stabbed her in the chest with a knife.

"They raped me for five long months, Lincoln! Is that what you wanted to hear, huh? Five hairy seven foot tall beasts stood in line to stick their throbbing cock in me, to rip me open from the inside. Do you know how hard it is to wake up with cramps in your stomach like those shafts are still ramming away into your body? Please enlighten me, Lincoln, how the fuck are you gonna help me, now that you know that?" He was unravelling before their eyes, blowing away like a sand castle in the wind, and there was nothing they could do about it because he was right about everything. How on earth could this knowledge support them in helping him?

"Michael... please?" Lincoln looked so uncharacteristically broken and small; standing there next to his furious brother, and it became more than clear to her which man was claiming the title of alpha-dog here.

"Please what, Linc? You wanted to know, you wanted to help. Well help me already, god damnit! Or, do you need more, is being ass-raped by stinking Panamanian monsters not enough for you, well, picture this then? Me, on my knees, giving them the blow job of their lives. Do you know how your gag-reflex almost suffocates you when they're pumping their stiff cocks to the back of your throat? Do you know you can do nothing but swallow their semen when you're forced to suck their dicks like that? I bet you didn't know that, did ya'?"

"Stop... please!" Now it was her time to plea.

His furious gaze almost knocked her of her feet. "Oh, teaming up on me, are you? Like you've been doing for months!"

Her tears were coming too fast and uncontrolled to ask him why he'd said that, because that was the last thing she wanted to do. She just wanted him to stop, she couldn't breathe anymore, she needed him to stop trembling so hard, or look at her with this bone crushing mixture of betrayal and hurt on his face, she needed it all to stop, to breathe. But he wouldn't grant her wish.

"You left me there to die, and I thank you for it, 'cause it was all I ever fucking deserved. But they wouldn't give it to me." A strange burst of relief surged through her when his murderous eyes fixed back onto Lincoln. "YOU wouldn't give it to me. You taught me how to keep the fucking faith, Lincoln, and I did, I waited for you to come, but you didn't, you left me there!" How could he keep on screaming like that with his voice becoming more, and more hoarse with every word uttered.

"Mikey, please listen, we did, we worked day and night to get you, please, you have to listen to me." Lincoln implored. She couldn't see clearly through her blurry eyes, but she heard the promise of tears in Lincoln's distressed voice too.

Michael however sounded more enraged than ever "You did! I know you did! And you did it at the worse possible time ever! I'd finally fucking planned to end it all, I'd finally fought back like you taught me and when I bit of that fucking monster's cock, it was the best feeling I've ever experienced. I was at peace with my decision Linc, to finally be free of all of it, and than I wake up and you're there. You couldn't even give me my peace, Huh! You've been selfish your whole damn life, and I've cursed myself countless times for believing you could ever change! How very idealistically _stupid_ of me, 'cause once a self-centred bastard always a self-centred bastard, I guess!"

_No, no, no, no, no, no_. This was going all wrong. She'd prepared herself for everything, at least that's what she'd thought half an hour earlier, but it was before her eyes witnessed the battlefield that was Michael's arm. Before Lincoln involuntarily told their secret. Before the brutal accusations entered Michael's otherwise gentle voice, and before he'd started to lash out and say things in his unrestrained fury, he definitely couldn't mean.

She saw Lincoln's body tense while he straightened up his shoulders, and she tensed alongside him, because she knew what this meant. After months of living together she'd become an expert in speaking 'non-verbal Lincolnese', it really wasn't that hard with a man who wore his heart on his sleeve. But now she wished she'd never categorised and memorised any of his typical body movements. Because, then she wouldn't know his momentary stupor was about to end, she wouldn't see his nostrils begin to flare and recognise that his anger was rapidly returning, she wouldn't notice how his hands were clenching into tight fists ready to unleash his own piquing fury in the way he knew best. She knew Michael's rant was about to end, and she could only hope it would be voluntarily and not forced upon.

"I was ready to die, Lincoln, but you weren't ready to live with that guilt, so you had to come and save me, to save yourself! Never mind my feelings about it, huh? You knew it would kill me, that I would never be able to let it go, but you still went through with it, 'cause it made your guilt go away! But what about my guilt? My guilt, Lincoln, what about _my_ guilt?" With every uttered _my guilt_ Michael pushed his fingers of his left hand into his chest hard to stress his point. After years of using needles, she could imagine all too well how those cuts on his arm would scream and tear against that movement, but other than a slight twitch of pain in his face he didn't let it faze him.

"Is that why you think I did it, little brother? Is it? I won't deny some of my motives were selfish. You're right, Michael, my happiness is indeed tied to you. Big fucking surprise there! Yes, living in this world with you still down there was mind-blowingly horrifying for me, and a part of me wanted you out of there and safe, just to be able to breathe for one god damn second! Ain't, I entitled to that after all the shit we went through? But if you think that's all I did it for, that my heart wasn't beating me to death from the inside out every single second I thought about you, and how it would effect you, then you couldn't be more fucking wrong, bro." He wasn't exactly fuming yet, but Lincoln Burrows ran on gasoline not on diesel, so it wouldn't take long for him to get into overdrive.

"And, don't think for a second that your rescue made me one ounce happier, 'cause guess what, Mike? It didn't! Seeing you wallow in your own shit twenty four seven, pushing away every bit of comfort we have to offer, isn't exactly a field trip to us. So why don't _you_ stop being a selfish prick too, and think about _us_ for a change!"

God, this confrontation had been harsh from the start, but now it really had turned surreal. They were lashing out venomously in ways they surely would regret later, but it seemed the only way the brothers could let out their fears and doubts, was through anger and striking out with snide remarks. She only hoped this was their normal way of fighting.

"Well, why bother then, you should have just left me to 'wallow in my own shit twenty for seven' there instead of here. So you wouldn't have to look at this fucking brooding face one second longer." The shouting had abased a little, for which she was grateful, but she didn't like this sarcastic Michael one bit better.

"Oh okay, that's right! Leave Michael to die in the gruesome hellhole that is Sona after he gave up his entire life to safe yours! Great plan, genius!" He put up his two thumbs to emphasise the last part and in any other situation it would have made her snicker, instead it made her stomach drop.

"And don't go blaming me for wanting to relieve the guilt, 'cause that would be the kettle calling the stove black, or the pot calling the kettle or, what the fuck ever! Don't claim you rescued me out of Fox River out of the goodness of your heart, Michael, you and I both know if Vee hadn't told you about the ninety grand, you would still be on your high horse, and I would be six feet under by now!"

She'd been excluded from this fight almost instantly, and the rebellion in her wanted to protest to that. They'd both claimed she was part of their little family now, but the minute it got intense she was discarded like a second-hand acquaintance, and that hurt. Family didn't do that. She'd been on her own pretty much from the start, learning to rely on her self and never let anyone get too close. But a couple of months with these brothers had given her a taste of something she'd unknowingly craved the first twenty-nine years of her life, companionship, unconditional love and absolute trust. They had dangled that prize like candy in front of her, making her salivate with desire, but the moment it got tough, they'd taken it away from her.

She'd never been an envious woman before, but that too had changed since the brothers had come into her life. She felt jealous, because she too wanted to be a part of this, she wanted to say something and not just stand there watching those two furious men go at each other, like she wasn't even present. She wanted to know who Vee really was, and what she had meant to the boys, and which ninety grand they were talking about.

The mixture of jealousy and anxiety made her stomach squirm inside her belly, and for a minute she'd thought she would be sick. A blending of heartburn and vomit crept up her throat making her gag a little, so she shut her eyes tight, and swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth, while trying to concentrate on her breathing.

She banned all sounds except that of her own wildly beating heart, and willed her body to calm down a little. When she opened her eyes again her face suddenly alighted with strange wonder while her breath caught in her throat. She'd never had an epiphany before, and she'd frankly always frowned when people claimed they'd had one. But the enthralling sight that met her eyes combined with the sudden clarity that flooded her mind, was sure to make a strong believer out of her that epiphanies_ did_ happen at the strangest times, and that they _did_ guide people through their most troubled ordeals.

Gone, was the blurry sight in front of her, because the tears had stopped the minute she'd opened her eyes. Gone, was the resentment that had weighed her down just moments earlier. Gone, were the two angry shouting men in font of her. Instead her gaze saw past the angry scowls on their faces, and her ears heard more than only vicious and hateful remarks. She saw two trembling men with flushed cheeks from both the emotion and the cold evening sea-breeze that hit their skin, two very broken men who were frantically trying to cover up the desperation and fear in their eyes, by shouting at each others. She saw wildly blinking eyelashes, furiously working to keep the tears at bay, she saw madly gesturing hands which wanted to hug rather than to punch.

Both men were heading for a fall, but they were just too freaking stubborn to see it coming. They were going to crash and burn real soon now, and she'd never known her task in life better than at that moment. This was never meant to be her fight; she would get her turn, eventually, but not today, today was all about the brothers, about letting out years of pent up emotions. She'd been destined to be here all along, to stand beside them and watch it all unfold before her, and when it happened she would be there to catch them, to catch them both before they hit the ground, and to never let go of them, ever again.

After another few moments of quiet contemplation she noticed she'd zoned out their sound throughout her sudden realization, so she hadn't quite heard what they'd said, but it wasn't hard to see that the nasty power struggle was still going strong. So she refocused on Lincoln who was currently shouting and prepared herself for the inevitable to come.

"... Well fine, you didn't do it out of guilt, I freaking did. I'm selfish, fine, have it your way, think what ever you fucking want, buddy. I don't care!" He so _did_ care, because she'd noticed the slight shiver passing through his body while Michael kept throwing these ridiculous accusations his way. But, apparently she was the only one to see this. Lincoln was becoming more and more pissed every passing second and she could imagine perfectly how much he really, _really_ didn't want to care, or at least how much he wanted to convince everybody he didn't. And Michael was so blinded by rage and frustration he actually believed his brother. She sighed hard, and shook her head a little. God, those two were something else all together and she wondered briefly if strangulation would be a good method to bring those stubborn men to their senses.

The next few seconds were filled with silence, and all three of them were breathing hard like they'd just run a mile on the beach instead of just having "talked". The brothers were in a tight stare-down and the utterly miserable expressions on both their faces, a mixture of uncontrolled anger and heartbreaking hurt, made them look so clumsy in trying to digest the horrible things that had been said. As expected, Lincoln was the first to break away. With a grumbled _fuck this_ he turned around abruptly and started to walk back to their home.

Once again she was struck by the hidden similarities in her boys' personalities. Ten minutes earlier the younger one had thought he could just walk away from them after one of his most horrifying secrets was revealed, and now the older one had just picked himself up and left right in the middle of it all. But, he didn't get more than five yards of distance between them before Michael's comment made him freeze in his tracks.

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Chapter End Notes:

I have in my possession the follow-up to this chapter and I only need 50 reviews to...

giggles while trying to dodge all the flying objects that are coming her way, especially those sharp pointy knife thingies

Just kiddin' babies! Now, really, would I be so cruel? Really? Mmmmmmm brings index finger to chin and ponders Okay, okay, I admit, I have been this cruel before, but I won't do it again, I adore you all too freaking much!

Just click the **next **button and say EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Correction, click the **submitting review** button first before jumping on the 'next and EEEEEEEEEEEEEE-ing' train!

giggles again God, I love messin' with y'all, just kidding again!!!! No need to review, just click on that next button!

Catch ya on the flip side!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE


	16. Let it out

Author's Chapter Notes:

This is for the indredibly loyal and ever wonderful Sanskrit: Baby, because of super amazing people like you, insecure dumb-asses like me keep on writing and posting things like this. You ROCK big time! Thank you!

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Let it out**

In hindsight, it would have been easy to categorise what happened next as a typical Michael thing to do. But, in the heat of the moment, she was too distracted by fear and shock to see what his bigger intentions were. What she saw was a man, driven by years of bottled up fear and anger, clawing at his brother in the worst possible way. She saw a broken man who knew his sibling so well he had no problem hitting where it hurt the most. Michael was angry, hurt, and driven into a corner, so lashing out, saying certain things that had bothered him for so long seemed the most probable thing to do. Whether those things were true or greatly enlarged by the intensity of the moment didn't seem to matter to Michael. After months of silence, he'd finally opened the gates and now everything was pouring out, _everything_.

But what she didn't see, was that, this same man, broken or not, was still _the_ master of manipulation. She was too absorbed by what he was saying that she didn't notice his body flinch every time his spiteful words hurt his older brother. She didn't notice that beyond the veil of anger in his eyes, much greater emotions shimmered, feelings of regret for what he was doing to his brother, like he was secretly screaming _I'm sorry Linc, I don't mean half the shit I'm saying, please forgive me _inside his head

Afterwards she would curse herself for disregarding Michael's personality traits so much during all of this mess. Of course, she knew that Michael had suffered all his life with low self-esteem, and saying his 'guilt coping skills' were underdeveloped, would be _putting it mildly_. She knew he didn't deal well with remorse, always blaming himself for everything.

His psychiatrist had pictured it perfectly for her when she'd visited him back in Chicago. His pain and guilt formed a dark forest inside his head, and his condition forced him to see every little detail of it. The leaves; brown and green, the roots; some sticking out of the earth in waves and some covered by soil, the different branches; small and large weaved together, and the thick large stems with their wrinkled bark. But while he registered every single millimetre of every material, he couldn't see the bigger picture. He was so overloaded by outside stimuli he literally couldn't see the forest through the trees. In other words, he was incapable of giving perspective to his guilt, to give it a place in his life other than a never-ending destruction mechanism to beat down his self-esteem. She knew it all, but hadn't connected the dots this day until it was too late.

Michael Scofield, had come back to them for one thing only, to receive the punishment he deserved for all his wrongdoing. And later on, she would know he hadn't been able to wrap his mind around the fact that they didn't, or _wouldn't_ give this punishment to him, the sore nose and cheek excluded. He saw mistrust, humiliation and retribution in the tree's trunk inside his head, not foot-cuddles and healing showers. He craved their vengeance like oxygen, he felt he needed to be beaten up and to be spit on for all the things he'd done to them. That was the only truth he could understand, the only motivation that kept him going. She should have seen it, she should have known that the inconsistency between what he thought he deserved, and what Lincoln and she thought he deserved would confuse him too much. He'd prepared himself for hate, not for the love they'd shown, and instead of curing him with it they had only helped to short-circuit his brain.

He was on a mission here. If they wouldn't punish him voluntarily, he would just drive them to do it, because trying to cut out his sins on his own hadn't worked, so he needed them to beat it out of him. If only she would have seen all of that, then maybe she could have stopped Lincoln. But, in hindsight _everything_ was easy to analyse, in the heat of the moment however, nothing was ever that simple.

"That's right, Lincoln, just turn around and walk away. Leave! Do the thing you've done best all of your life!"

Lincoln halted his steps but didn't turn around yet. She saw his back-muscles tense and his head turned a little to the left to hear Michael better.

"And while you're at it, just grab a cold bottle of beer and pretend nothing ever happened, 'cause you're so _damn_ good at that! Oh, and don't mind me, brother," The last word was spat with so much disgust a little spit flew out of Michael's mouth "I've long grown accustomed to you leaving. But, I wonder what your son is thinking about that?"

If it hadn't been obvious earlier that she was shocked, it just got pretty darn clear, because she felt her lower lip drop and touch the ground, while her eyes grew wide as saucers.

"Remember LJ, Lincoln? Sandy blond hair, about five and a half feet tall, answers to the name 'Burrows'."

Lincoln started turning slowly, and when his face got fully into view, she felt her breath hitch in her throat. His lips were pressed together in a fine line, turning them almost white, and his eyes carried the power to turn every living thing to dust.

"I remember hearing you beg for a second chance with him. Well you got that chance months ago, shouldn't he be here by now? Or was he too much of a burden to you too, Linc. I bet he feels real proud being your kid right now!"

Oh god, what the hell was he doing? She hadn't noticed it until now but she was slowly closing the distance between Michael and her. She didn't exactly know why, maybe she wanted to put her hand over his mouth to make him stop saying those dreadful things to Lincoln, or maybe she wanted her body between the two brothers, because the way Lincoln's cheeks were turning red with anger, made her chest squeeze with panic. Her mission was to protect one of them, she just didn't know which one yet.

"Michael." This was it, the first warning from Lincoln and probably the last. Unfortunately the younger man chose to ignore the threat in Lincoln's voice and continued.

"Things don't register with you, Linc, so let me spell it out for you nice and simple, so you'll understand. You left him _three_ times, once when he was a kid, the second time, now you're finally free, and the third time is a tricky one but the one you should be proud of the most. You left Lisa to raise him by herself, and she is dead and in the ground now too. LJ is left with no parent, Lincoln, your son saw his mother's brains spread all over the floor, because of you, because of me! We killed her Linc! We and no-one else! And, what do you do? You leave him on his own, and go on with your life, like nothing's happened. I don't fucking understand that!" She was so close now, but not close enough, because Lincoln too had started to advance slowly towards Michael.

"Mike, I'm gonna tell you to shut that trap of yours, while you still can!" It wasn't loud, spoken from between clenched teeth, but it still chilled her to the marrow. Michael however, wasn't set on stopping any time soon.

"Or what Linc? You gonna make me? You gonna beat me 'till I quit. Oh, I forgot, that's the one thing you do better than leaving, isn't it?"

She was close enough to jump in front of Michael and stop a suddenly very determined Lincoln from getting to him. Lincoln had propelled himself towards Michael with such speed that the power of her hands on both of his shoulders proved too weak to stop him completely. Instead, she was knocked backwards into Michael and she would have lost her balance too, if Michael hadn't grabbed both of her biceps and steadied her.

An unexpected sweat broke out on her forehead, and the cooling winter breeze suddenly felt like scorching steam escaping from a heated oven. She felt too hot, Lincoln's erratic puffs on one side of her face were burning her, his shoulders were scolding hot beneath her fingertips, but that heat was still mild compared to the blistering prints Michael's fingers were leaving on her upper arms.

But still, nothing, not even all of those things put together, could have prepared her for the smouldering heat of Michael's chest and groin pressed into her back. She felt her muscles and skin melt like butter on a white hot frying pan. She was melting into him, merging to become one, and for a split second she didn't mind being that butter when Michael Scofield was that particular frying pan. But adjusting her gaze onto the furious face of the man she was trying to stop, broke her little cooking-reverie without mercy. Lincoln looked livid, and ready to kill, and she needed to focus all of her energy on getting him, and herself, away from Michael.

She pushed back with all her might, effectively untangling herself from Michael's unbearable heat, and she succeeded in putting a little distance, albeit not even a foot, between the two men.

Lincoln's low voice made his chest tremble, and the tremor passed via her fingers into her body cutting right through her bones. "Is that so? Well then, I guess you're two seconds away from feeling what I do best."

Lincoln pushed back against her hands and she had to widen her stance and lean forward with the whole of her weight to hold her ground. An audible groan left her mouth, revealing her struggle, but the sound was lost against the harsh breathing of the two men that sandwiched her. She angled her head a little and tried to catch Lincoln's gaze, but his deadly eyes were fixed over her right shoulder. She wondered for a second, how long he could keep looking so intensely without blinking, but she had no desire what so ever to find out. With difficulty to not loose the pressure on his body, she shifted her head to block the sight of the man in front of him. She squeezed his shoulders firmly and spoke with determination. "Lincoln! Lincoln, look at me!"

After what felt like ages, his furious orbs shifted and connected with hers, and she did a mental victory dance when she saw the momentum of his rage deflate visibly while looking at her. She didn't have to say anything because her eyes pleaded better than words ever could for him to stop and to calm down a little. Gradually the power behind his shoulders decreased too and due to the counterforce of her body she stumbled a little into him. He stabilized her by putting his hands on her hips, and she squeezed his shoulders again, this time much gentler, to show her gratitude.

A noise from behind her that sounded a whole lot like a sarcastic snort broke their little moment, and when she turned her head sideways to look at Michael, she swore she saw a flash of jealousy pass across his eyes. She frowned, but had no time to get into that further, because Lincoln's voice drew her focus away again from the man behind her.

"You can believe all the fuck you want about me, bro, but you and I..." to emphasize those last words, his right hand left her left hip to point at Michael and himself "... you and I, my friend, we are the same. My blood runs through your veins too, Michael, whether you want to accept that or live in denial. We set our mind to something, and we get what we want, _always_! No matter who gets hurt in the process, who dies, who has to take the fall, we fucking get what we want. You can probably conceal it a lot better with that guilt-act of yours, but ultimately the end justifies the means for you too."

Lincoln's speech had ended, but his pointed index finger was still poised in the space between Michael's chest and her back, and just as she planned to cram her neck to see Michael's face, he continued. "And if you ever dare to drag my son into this mess ever again, I will kill you. You don't know half the shit you're talking about, so nothing gives you the right to judge my decisions. And trust me, Michael, I will kill you over him any day!"

She didn't have to see Michael to know how much that last comment had sliced his heart. She didn't know if it was true. How could anybody know, really? How could anybody ever make a rational choice between the two human beings he loved the most, between the two men that were in his blood incontrovertibly. Either way, she doubted Lincoln had thought much about this choice before uttering those words, he just wanted to hurt his brother in the same manner Michael had upset him before.

Lincoln's gaze shifted back to meet hers, and she was proud to see that he had regained the control over his temper. The outstretched hand that had pointed towards Michael, came back to rest on her left hand that still lay limp on his shoulder. He gazed deeply into her eyes, and she understood immediately that he was done for the day. He looked drained and if it was up to him they'd continue this at another time. He squeezed her hand and her hip one last time and started backing away towards the house for the second time that evening.

But before he could turn around fully Michael's amused voice stopped him yet again. "Oh this is priceless, you used to jump at every opportunity to beat me up, and now this is all I get, because of her. But yeah, you're fucking her now, so I guess the promise of getting some is enough to calm you down, huh, Linc?"

She twisted her body around forcefully, and like a coordinated play Lincoln and she yelled at the same time. "WHAT?"

"Michael?" She whispered incredulously, but he didn't seem to notice, instead he passed by her to get closer to Lincoln again.

"I gave up my whole life for you, and that's the thanks I get. You know how much she means to me! But no, you had to take her too, huh, Linc? You couldn't just let me have her?"

She was too dumbfounded by these new accusations to deny them. Her mind was whirling a mile a minute, screaming that it was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard, that he was so far from the truth it was ridiculous, but her paralysed tongue just wouldn't cooperate.

"And don't you two try to deny it, 'cause I had to endure you touching and hugging each other so god damn intimately every single day. And did you really think I wouldn't notice you sleeping together every night?"

His once beautiful face was marred by anger, but what brought the tears back into her eyes, was the all consuming anguish that seemed to take over his eyes when he spoke. He shifted and looked straight at her while she started to shake her head slowly in a silent no. He couldn't possibly have thought this, could he? Oh god, she had touched Lincoln so abundantly these last couple of weeks, craving his support, needing his warmth to soothe her. This comfort had helped them both in getting through this mess, and her bewildered mind still couldn't understand how it could backfire so hard and so fast all of a sudden.

"Guess what, Sara? If you wanted to be quiet you should have opted for climbing out his window instead of using the old squeaking stairs."

A few tears spilled from her eyes, as he turned back to a still baffled Lincoln. "It was killing me, tearing me apart from the inside, way crueller than any sick fuck from Sona ever could, and you two didn't even care! Was she worth it, Lincoln? Was she feisty enough for you in the sack? I bet she was, furious redheads always are!"

Lincoln brought his hand to his shocked face, and rubbed it from the crown of his head downwards, until it rested over his mouth. "What the hell are you talking about?" Michael however, ignored this muttered whisper and focused back on her.

"Was he good, Sara? Did he push your buttons right? Switching from one brother to the other, how very convenient for you. I bet your thighs were very glad you chose the bulky one over the wimp."

Her tongue maybe paralysed but her hand certainly wasn't, and just like the day before she slapped him faster than her mind had time to think about it. He staggered back visibly and couldn't stop groaning heavily while she drew that same hand up to cover her mouth in shock. The sting in his cheek had without doubt transferred to his bruised nose, and that had to hurt like hell. Tears of pain made his eyes look shiny, but while they didn't fall, hers spilled richly down her shocked face. She hadn't meant to slap him, really! But the things he was saying were just so deliriously wrong, they made her head spin and body do things she had no control over.

For a moment they were the only two people on the world. They were both teary, bruised inside and out, and while looking deep into his eyes, she realised they were probably the most fucked up couple ever to exist on this earth. Her thoughts, however, were abruptly interrupted by Lincoln, who grabbed her arm that still held her hand in front of her shocked mouth while he started dragging her away.

While backwards stepping away from Michael, he lifted his hand again to point at him. "You..., dude, ARE crazy! And I won't stay a minute longer to listen to that bullshit leaving your mouth. _We_, are leaving, and when you've calmed down I advise you to get your ass back into the house so we can finish this."

She couldn't even protest if she wanted to, because once Lincoln had turned around she was sure she looked like a small child being dragged away by her older brother while she tried in vain to keep up with his larger steps. She was concentrating so hard on not falling, that she didn't even feel Lincoln stop in his tracks when Michael started shouting again. So she bumped straight into his frozen body from behind. Unlike hers, his bulky form didn't even stagger one bit from the impact, so she stumbled backwards a bit. But before she was able to regain her balance fully, an enraged Lincoln had already turned around and was sprinting towards Michael like a bull to a red flag.

"What the..." She muttered while turning around too, but the rest of the words got stuck halfway down her throat, as her momentarily dazed mind caught up with what she'd just heard Michael shout!

_You couldn't even wait until Vee had a proper burial, could ya'? She's out there Linc, rotting away somewhere in a godforsaken desert with a bullet in her head. You couldn't even control your dick long enough for her to be found. Do you even remember her, Linc? Veronica, she died for us too! Or was she nothing but an easy-to-forget lay for you? Was that really all she meant to you, an easy and free fuck, from a woman who was too freaking naïve to see how deadly we were? _

Her eyes grew impossibly wide, but it was already too late, and as she saw the first impact of Lincoln's fist with one side of Michael's face, she could do nothing else other than let out a bloodcurdling scream.

"LINCOLN!"

* * *

Chapter End Notes:

Slips into Rod Tidwell-mode SHOW ME THE MONEY BABIES!!!! JUST SHOW ME THE LOVE!!! You **are** my ambassadors of QUAN sweeties!!!!

I don't know if Tidwell would use all the 'babies' and 'sweeties', but God, didn't you just love Cuba Gooding Junior in Jerry Maguire. And his oscar-speech! DAMN! You just have to love that man!

Any way, babaaaaaaiiiiiii, love ya! SuperMike

(posts chapter 16 and "patiently" hits the refresh button every ten seconds to see all the love she's gonna get)


	17. This time around

Author's Chapter Notes:

And the updating continues!

xxx Mikey

* * *

**Chapter 17 This time around**

Vee, his stunning Veronica. _How dare he!_ His beautiful girl, once so alive and driven, now lay rotting away in the desert, or at the bottom of the sea, or worse. _He had no fucking right!_ Her immaculate face now marred with the bloody hole of her metal killer; or her lovely chest drilled by skillfully placed bullets, or both. He didn't really want to know, and it didn't matter, because either way, the blood that tainted her lifeless corpse still looked more real to him than the blood that stuck to his knuckles now.

That particular blood, a mixture born from his split knuckles and the bruised face of his brother, that blood, was anything but red. It was colourless, specks of meaningless grey on his fingers, on Michael's face, on Michael's clothes. It even tasted like nothing when a particular heavy blow ripped open the blood-vessels in his brother's nose again, and Michael could do nothing but spurt out blood on Lincoln's face and mouth. Yes, it tasted like nothing, an insignificance, not warm, not coppery, just grey.

Although, subconsciously he knew he was wrong, that this wasn't meaningless grey, this was indecisive grey. Grey that was still wavering between the salvation of white, as he would fully realise what a colossal mistake he was making, that this wasn't the person who had taken Veronica away from him, and the foulness of black, as he would keep on punishing his brother, and himself through Michael, for dragging her into this, for killing her.

He was already straddling a barely conscious Michael, delivering blow after blow to his crumpled face, when Sara's pleading voice finally registered.

"Lincoln, please stop!"

The tears were palpable in her voice and although he didn't want to, this made his fists waver for a second. He turned his head to the right a little, and saw her sprawled on the sand a few feet from them, cradling her right arm close to her chest. He saw her frightened eyes, and the silent tears that were leaking from them, but that too felt like grey, like nothingness to him.

He was wrong, yet again, because as his fists descended on Michael's face again with a vigour, he noticed that the grey from before was long gone. Instead the darkest of black stained his fingers, and he wasn't sure if he would ever be able to wash that colour away.

----------------------

It took her about ten seconds to get to them, but it honestly felt more like ten minutes. She was suddenly the protagonist in her very own weird low-budget horror-movie, where she kept on sprinting full force towards her goal, but at the same time the beach seemed to both elongate and close in, keeping the brothers further away with every step she took.

She had to endure all of it, mercilessly. Lincoln's first punches to Michael's jaw, with his head forced to swing from one side to the other. The next few punches, one square on his already swollen nose, and one cutting open the skin right above his left eye. Next a push and a shove with Michael's body stumbling backwards while his arms remained limp next to his body, instead of coming up to shield himself from his brother's wrath.

In Dolby-surround sound she heard Michael's grunt when he tripped over his own faltering feet and landed on all fours in the sand, and in high-tech multi-colour vision, she saw his face contort with pain as Lincoln proceeded to kick him in the stomach.

She was half way when her fixed terrified eyes witnessed Michael fall flat on his back due to the force of the kick, and then she saw Lincoln lowering himself to straddle his younger brother.

_Fight, Michael! God dammit, FIGHT! Protect yourself! _

_Stop, Lincoln! I beg you, please stop!_

Those were all very reasonable things to shout, but also things that were very much stuck at the base of her heaving throat, as she saw Lincoln's fist reign down on his brother's face, with seemingly one goal, namely to make a bloody mess of the flesh beneath his knuckles. She gasped for breath now, as she heard Michael start to chuckle between every heavy punch Lincoln bestowed on him.

Her mind was already electrified by all of the tumultuous things that had happened and had been said this day, but this insane Michael, who shifted between giggling like a maniac and sobbing like a child, had her bewildered like she didn't know possible. _What the hell was he doing? Did he want to die today? Was that his ultimate goal? Did he break out his brother only to be murdered by Lincoln himself now?_

She didn't want to know the answer to that, she only wanted to get to them faster, because every new thud of 'skin meeting skin' felt like a new string being strapped around her heart, squeezing her chest so tight with the same paralyzing terror she'd only grown accustomed to since the younger brother had gotten himself thrown into Sona. One wrong punch to Michael's temple, one broken nose-bone shifted upwards into his head, one small torn blood-vessel inside his brain that decided it had enough of all the commotion, that's _all _it would take for this to be over, for this to end in Michael's favour.

She really didn't know where she got the extra energy, but she accelerated her pace a little more. Maybe it was the realisation that Lincoln was so far gone, he couldn't possibly see the clinical danger in this. Or maybe it was the stilled body of Michael, who all of a sudden wasn't giggling nor sobbing anymore from beneath his brother's weight. She didn't know what the reason was, but she just ran. Ran like she had never run before.

When she, after what felt like an eternity, finally reached them, her body halted abruptly and she was momentarily bewildered on what to do. Lincoln seemed beyond furious, hitting away at his brother's head and chest, like he was a lifeless punching bag, while screaming that Michael had no fucking right to speak of her like that. And Michael, he just lay there, welcoming every strike with a soft snort or whimper, but never doing anything to stop his furious attacker. His left eye was already swollen shut, and the blood that tainted his face and Lincoln's hands made her dizzy, but it also fuelled her to move again, and before she knew what was happening she was trying to drag Lincoln off of his brother.

"Lincoln, stop! STOP!" She screamed hysterically while her hands tried to get a hold of his bruising ones, but he wouldn't let her. Suddenly, she managed to get his upper right arm in a vice-like grip with both of her hands wrapped around his bicep. She started to drag his bulky form sideways off Michael, but in his fury he grabbed one of her wrists and twisted it painfully away from his arm, until she was certain she heard something pop within her bones. The sudden bout of pain shooting up her arm made her scream out loud, while the force of Lincoln's grip made her stagger and fall flat on her behind.

The tears on her face came instantly after that, the throbbing in her wrist was just too strong, and the sound of Michael's skull hitting the sand with a dull thud after every blow to his face was too loud to keep them at bay any longer. She pleaded brokenly again for Lincoln to stop, but as their gaze locked for a split second she saw that his eyes were so troubled and glazed over, he couldn't possible be thinking lucidly about what he was doing to his sibling.

This fact blew new life into her resolve, and with renewed determination she scrambled to her feet, and advanced on the two men. She would get him off and away from Michael, even if he broke every bone in her body, she would stop his frenzied assault on his brother. She managed to get behind him, and in a resolute act, she wrapped her uninjured left arm around his neck and started to pull him backwards. She succeeded in dragging his temporarily shocked body a few feet away from Michael, before she lost her balance and fell backwards for the second time in under a minute. She pulled his kneeling body with her and gritted her teeth to keep from screaming as his back hit her chest hard, while squashing her sore right arm between them.

As she wrapped her legs around his waist from behind, she didn't for one second stop to think how ridiculous they might look to an outsider, but the minute Lincoln had started to struggle against her hold again, she'd known this would be the only position, in which she would have any chance of holding him back long enough to get him out of this violent trance.

"Linc, please, stop! Listen to me, you gotta stop! You're gonna kill him, if you don't stop now." She whispered desperately, close to his ear.

He struggled against her for long moments, making her muscles burn with acid from the static compression, and making her whimper every time his back pushed harder against her tender wrist between their bodies, but she didn't loosen her fierce grip until she felt his body yield and slack against her fully.

--------------------------------

"Please, Linc, you gotta stop, baby. You don't want to hurt him." Her eyes were so clear and her voice so soft, it forced his lungs to let out a heavy sigh. God, he missed her. The bittersweet mirage of her face slowly evaporated until he could see nothing more than the clouds above his head, but her voice still lingered. _It's not his fault, baby, it's not your fault, both of you, it's not your fault. _

She was a figment of his imagination, a hallucination of a clemency he so desperately wanted to hear from her lips, but something he would never receive from her in this life again. It was make-believe of his naïve mind, but it still succeeded in calming him to a point where his whole weight slackened on top of Sara. Suddenly, he had no fight left in him, his hands with bloodied and swollen skin, made numb by the many blows they had delivered, fell loose to the ground and every grain of fury seemed to escape into the soft sand through that connection. The only thing that remained was a numbing bitterness. _She was gone, and nothing he would do, could ever change that._

He laid still, half sprawled on top of Sara's body for long minutes. Her frantic heart-beat thumping against the back of his head, and her anxious breaths whooshing past his ears in synch with the pace of his own heavy breathing. All three of them stayed perfectly still like that, recovering from the intensity of what had just transpired. Suddenly a small pang of fear rippled in the back of his troubled mind. Maybe his brother was _forced _to recover from the fight, maybe his fists had already hurt Michael so much he _couldn't_ get up.

The pang of fear and guilt was still too small to outweigh the bitterness, but it still made him sit up slowly to look at Michael. He tried to ignore it, but a small sliver of relief soothed his disturbed soul, as he saw his brother, sprawled on his back on the sand, lift his hand to his face slowly to examine the damage. A few moments later, Michael decided to turn around slowly and lift his body gradually onto his hands and knees. He groaned and whimpered with every movement, but it still didn't quite register in Lincoln's mind that he was responsible for those pained moans.

Michael looked like hell had run him over, with blood smeared over practically every part of his face, and dripping down his neck and onto his clothes, but Lincoln didn't even flinch when Michael lifted his head to look straight at him with swollen eyes, while he spit out some saliva mixed with blood from between his split lips. The facts didn't seem to penetrate his mind correctly, because everything looked grey again to Lincoln, the sea, the blood, his brother on all fours in front of him, pummeled to within an inch of his life, by him. It was all back to grey, meaningless grey.

He struggled to his feet, and sensed Sara do the same behind him, while Michael only lifted his upper body so he was resting on his knees. They looked straight at each other, both with jaws set and lips pressed together by lingering anger. The intensity of it, made the air around them crackle, but Lincoln had had enough, and for the forth time that day, he turned his body to leave Michael behind.

"You don't deserve them."

It was the softest whisper he'd ever heard, and the words sounded weird and hoarse, pronounced by the bruised and beaten mouth and throat of his brother, but it still was enough to make him stop and turn towards Michael again.

His eyes narrowed as their gaze locked again, and the bitterness coloured his voice black.

"And you do?" He chuckled harshly. "At least I don't go around and rape weak, harmless women, huh!"

He wasn't surprised to hear the sharp intake of breath of both Sara and Michael, but he was beyond caring. Michael had pushed him beyond that point long ago, and he wasn't strong enough to retrieve his inner peace of mind, and with it his common sense. His anger was back, full force. He was angry with Michael for saying all those things, with Sara for dragging him off Michael, with his dad and Vee for leaving him alone in this mess. But, most of all he was angry with himself for being who he was. He ruined everything, and everyone he ever touched.

The only thing stopping him from advancing on his brother again, was the sudden dark scowl contorting Michael's already bruised face and the way his eyes were gradually turning unfocussed. His head started to twitch lightly to the right and he tried to open his swollen eyes as wide as possible, blinking furiously in the process, like he was trying to shake of a sudden drunkenness.

In the back of Lincoln's mind an uneasy feeling stirred, but his anger was still too strong to acknowledge it.

"And for the record. She only comes to me at night, because you keep pushing her away. There's not a single thing between us, never has been, and never will be. Our only flaw is that we are both the biggest suckers for your touch and affection, Michael. We crave you, we need you to be able to survive. Do you understand what that means, brother? We can't fucking function without you?" He spat his words out venomously.

"You kept pushing us away so hard, we had to seek out each other's touch to stay alive during this mess. Like a cheap second hand choice, I needed her arms to hold me, because that was my only fucking connection to you. And I was the same shitty substitute for her. Do you get any of this crap, Michael? Does it register with you?" He screamed.

He witnessed his brother's body start to tremble during his speech, making his postural sway on his knees seem dangerously unstable. The tremor and twitching in his head had only increased, and when Michael brought up his left hand to rub against his wounded forehead and temple in an uncoordinated manner, Lincoln subconsciously knew something was very off, but on a conscious level he didn't register it yet, the uneasy feeling just seemed to grow in the pit of his stomach. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough yet to shut his mouth from spitting out this one final blow.

"You could have just asked us about it. But no. You raped her, Michael. You forced yourself on her like a wild animal." He spat disgustedly.

"Maybe you should have left me in Fox River, 'cause I just realised I should have left you in Sona, where you belong, with all those other fucking monsters!"

He closed his eyes after uttering that final statement. He pressed them shut tight, blocking out the shocked 'Lincoln' from Sara's mouth, and the image of the exact moment he'd broken his kid brother's heart for the last time. The moment he'd compared Michael to those vile monsters, was the moment Michael's eyes glazed over completely, and he visually swayed back on his knees by the blow to his heart.

That was it, for no reason other than his own selfish need to vengefully hurt and destroy, he'd done it again. He didn't mean any of it, of course not, and he didn't understand why he'd said it. It didn't matter anymore though, because it was too late to take it back now.

Without looking at them, he turned around swiftly, a feeling of total hopelessness enveloping his whole being, he started to walk away from them. He knew he would stop, before it actually happened, Michael had succeeded in halting his departure the first four times so he would do it again now.

But while the previous times, the venom and mockery in Michael's voice had forced him to turn around, there was something completely different stopping him now. This time his baby brother's voice sounded so croaky and absolutely lost, it made Lincoln's throat constrict with fear.

"I... ra... raped..." He tried, but faltered as the tears entered his hoarse voice.

"I... raped... Sara,... Linc..., I raped her!" He tried again, so absolutely earth-shatteringly broken, like it was the first time that truth actually registered in his brain.

Lincoln's face started to tremble, and he gritted his teeth together to keep the tears at bay, before he slowly turned around to face his brother again. What he saw hit him in the chest like a freight train.

His brother was trembling on his knees so profoundly, it was a miracle his body was still upright. He was shaking and jerking his head uncontrollably, while rubbing against his skull with jittery hand motions, as though he wanted to scratch his head open, to release the monsters in it.

"Linc, my head... it hurts! Please, it hurts, help me...make it go away!"

Lincoln's eyes widened in horror, as a terrible fear squeezed all the breath from his lungs. He had seen this horrible place before, in a life long lost, he had been here before.

"Fuck!" He groaned softly.

Suddenly the grey in front of him vanished, and he was bombarded by a kaleidoscope of colours. The azure blue of the sea blinded him, just like the ashen skin of both Sara and Michael, but the coppery blood, the red that seemed to be everywhere, cut through him to the bone.

Michael's pained gaze briefly locked with his while he kept on hitting his head, and the hopelessness and devastation in it was so disarmingly palpable, Lincoln left no room for error anymore. Playtime was over, they had shouted, cursed, and condemned each other to the pits of hell. They had lied and said maliciously untrue things to sting each other, like they had never stung before, but it had to stop now.

"Sara, go back to the house and get a shot of sedatives." His voice sounded calm and collected, the total opposite of the panic that was brewing in his stomach.

"Wha..., What, Linc? What ... is happening?" She stuttered back confused.

"Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop,..." His brother rattled, with a voice that grew louder and hoarser with every uttered word.

"Michael, what's wrong?" Sara screamed frantically, before she advanced on him and tried to make him stop scratching his head.

The moment her soft hand touched Michael's arm gently he jerked away from her like she was scorching hot, and the most tortured scream left his mouth. Sara staggered back bewildered, before Lincoln's determined voice sounded again.

"SARA, FUCKING RUN BACK TO THE HOUSE AND GET A SEDATIVE,... NOW!" There was no time left to spare her feelings as he shouted his command for the second time. She flinched visibly, and he saw a brief flicker of hurt cross her face, but the terror in his eyes was enough for her to understand the graveness of this situation. Without looking back she started sprinting towards their home. He just hoped she would get back in time.

* * *

Chapter End Notes:

Anyone curious to know what's happening to Mike???? ANYONE??? Mooehahahaaa! LET ME KNOW!

Finally, the bad part is almost over!!! WIIEEEEE! Wow, and it only took me seventeen chapters to do it, but I'm afraid you're not getting rid of me very soon, 'cause everyday, I keep getting new ideas for this one, some are real beauties, some are so sweet they'll rotten your teeth, some are, dare I say it, naughty!!! And yes, some are angsty, because god no, not all the angst is gone. Actually, I'm afraid we're not even halfway in this story. I apologise again for being so slow. But hey, you've stuck with me so far, I guess you can stick with me a little longer uh!

BTW anyone seen Eastern Promises yet? And if yes, anyone else mesmerized by THAT fighting scene! I knew already that VIGGO was love for me, but now he's simply GOD to me!!! Man, I love him. Wouldn't mind a Wenty-Mikey-Viggo sandwich, NOT AT ALL!! So yes, any faults in this chapter are simply because I'm still slightly blinded by seeing Viggo's naked abs, and naked buttocks, and naked penis. Holy mother, thank you for all the nekkedness! Btw, I loved that movie, great dark atmosphere, and the actors just rocked their parts! But it's definitely not for weak hearts, because it even got a KNT label here, which is the same as 'you can't enter until you're 16', and well, you don't get that a lot here in Belgium. You can pretty much fill 90 minutes with boobs and weenies and sex in lots of different positions, and it's still KT (kids allowed). Anyhow, babaaai babes, that was enough Movie-pimping for today.

See ya in a couple of hours!


	18. This time around Part 2

Okay peeps. I'm terribly sorry, but it seems I've been neglecting this site these last few months. SORRY!!

But hey, I'm back again, so YAY! Tonight I will be updating this, and post two new stories too, so check them out, if you find the time!

Oh, fuck, that will mean I will be having 3 WIP's on this site groans but hey, don't worry. The plan is to finish "I learned the truth at seventeen" within the next two weeks and then have a major updating and finishing fest for this one in July! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Anyhow! ENJOY!!

* * *

**Chapter 18 This time around (part two)**

The harsh acidic pain of heartburn had already reached the back of her throat but it didn't make her stop. The clogging sand slowed her down a great deal, but it didn't make her quit. The wooden door seemed heavy and unyielding, but she rammed it open in under a second, and the stairs, suddenly so impossibly high, she took two steps at a time.

She sprinted to the medicine cabinet in her room, while trying to temper the feeling of blinding panic in her stomach, but the image of such a distraught Michael, didn't exactly help with that task. She'd foolishly convinced herself that by now she would be used to seeing Michael in such a state, that she could be one hundred percent professional when it ever happened again, instead of a panicky and clumsy fool. But as her jittery fingers fumbled with the cabinet's door, while flashes of bruised lips, swollen jaws and frightened eyes contaminated her vision, she cursed herself for ever being so presumptuous.

Her heart was beating a mile a minute, but as the cabinet finally opened, she almost flat-lined.

"Oh god!" She croaked while her eyes widened with horror.

No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!

The anaesthetics! Where the fuck were the anaesthetics? She ignored the pain in her wrist and started rummaging in the cabinet, picking up and checking every single bandage, tube of ointment and box of pills.

She groaned as the realisation hit her. After the dreadful events of the previous week, Lincoln, in his over-protectiveness, had locked away every drug that could possible be a threat to her sobriety. Stupid fucking Lincoln and his stupid fucking concern for her! Why the hell did he have to care so much?

She was about to unleash another string of vile curses towards everyone and everything for doing this to her NOW, when the most earth-shattering scream reached her ears. It sounded diluted by the distance and the walls between them, but it still ripped her heart out.

She dropped the tubes still clenched in her hands, and stumbled backwards clumsily over all the medical supplies that she'd thrown around her in her haste, before she composed herself a little and sprinted towards the bathroom.

--

_"Aaaahh... Linc... it hurts, help me." His brother moaned brokenly not more than just a few yards away from him, but Lincoln couldn't help him one bit, because as soon as those words had fallen from Michael's lips he was transported back in time._

_"Aaaah...Linc,...it hurts, Linc. Help me." His baby brother whimpered into his ear._

_"Shhhht, buddy, we're almost there." Thirteen year old Lincoln whispered back against his brother's temple while tightening his arms around the small child wrapped around his torso. _

_While he himself had always been pretty bulky and among the tallest in his class, his nine year old brother was small for his age. He'd never liked the fact that most of Michael's classmates towered over his shy baby brother physically, giving them all a better opportunity to "tower" over him mentally too. But right about now, having carried him for five blocks to the hospital, he didn't really mind that Michael hadn't reached his growth-spurt yet. _

_At first a hysterical Michael had clung to him like a monkey, with his arms and legs wrapped around Lincoln's waist and neck in a vice grip, leaving not an inch of space between their chests, but now, five blocks and twenty minutes later, he seemed completely drained as his arms and legs had fallen limp astride his body. His head rested lifelessly in the crook of Lincoln's neck, and if it weren't for the small hiccups after his sobs had subdued, and the occasional whimpered cry for help, Lincoln could have sworn Michael had fallen asleep in his arms._

_"Make it stop, Linc...Make them stop!" The words sounded slurred a little, as if his brother had drunk too much beer instead of milk._

_Picturing that ridiculous image brought a dark scowl onto Lincoln's face. He'd rather witnessed the 'deflowering' of his alcohol-virgin brother, than the horror he'd endured today, because today, it had become undeniably clear that his kid brother would never be normal. _

_"I will, kiddo, I will. Just hold on a little longer." He answered back softly while shifting his hand a little so he could half caress Michael's back as he was holding him. _

_Oh, he knew that Michael was different, his mom had made sure that he knew how extraordinary Michael really was, and that he himself understood what a very important role he played in the life of his brother. 'Special boys like Mikey, need special brothers like you, sweetie, to hold him, and love him, and kiss him, and tickle him'. That's what his mom always said. _

_A small smile softened his brooding features a little as he thought of that line, and the way his mother always squeezed, and kissed and tickled him to emphasise her words. He would always answer with an embarrassed "MOM!", especially when she did that in front of his friends, but deep down he loved it. _

_So yes, from very early on he'd known that Michael was special, but special had always had a positive connotation in the Scofield-home. Special like in smarter, special like in more attentive, and sweeter and lots of other good things. Just plain and simple 'better'. His mom knew that and he knew that, the rest of the world however seemed to have trouble accepting that. Today it had become abundantly clear that the outside world wasn't ready for 'special', that the world wasn't ready for Michael Scofield. _

_When Michael was little everything had seemed relatively fine, and except for the freaked-out kindergarten teacher once in a while, everybody seemed to cope with his brother's sometimes unusual antics. But the older he got, the bigger the list of people who didn't seem to 'get' him like he and his mom did. Like the mortified teacher who'd given him detention, because he'd blatantly outsmarted him in front of the class. His introvert brother was also a too easy target for bigger boys to bully him out of his lunch-money, and though a furious Lincoln had met some of them up close and VERY personally, he couldn't keep them all at bay. _

_But even worse than the bullies were the rest of the kids, those who ignored him, who called him the weirdo, the dork. Lincoln couldn't count the times anymore that he'd found his brother alone in the farthest corner of the play-yard playing with that astray cat, while everybody else was playing together. Every time he would ask the same question 'why Michael wasn't playing with them', and every time this wistful look would grace his little brother's face before he'd answer that 'Cicero', the cat, needed to be fed. Fucking hell, he'd named the cat 'Cicero'. Why would any normal nine year old want to name his cat like that? But yeah, he was special, right? And either way, that freaking cat was his best friend, his ONLY friend, and there was nothing Lincoln could do about that._

_But all misunderstandings aside, his mom and him had still hoped that Michael could ground himself a little, and could adjust to the world, as he grew up. It wasn't fair, he knew, having to change yourself for the others, but that was just the way it was. _

_Everything had been going relatively fine, but today Lincoln's bubble had finally burst. _

_His fingers started to tingle with anger. Oh, they would pay! Every single one of them. With insane amusement he noted he'd better start writing his punishment essay already, because he was sure he'd have to write a book, when he would be finished with them. _

_He tightened his grip around his whimpering brother again as he rounded the last corner to the hospital. The entrance came in to view, and while his arms screamed in relief, a sudden dread welled up in the pit of his stomach. The same dread he'd felt earlier that day when his brother hadn't shown up on the spot where they usually met after school. He would have to release Michael in a few minutes, and he feared neither Michael, nor he himself would be ready for that. _

_He stopped walking for a second and readjusted his hold on the slumping child in his arms. Michael's ragged breath drew goosebumps on Lincoln's skin, as his soft lips bumped against the side of Lincoln's neck. God, he had been so angry with his brother when he hadn't shown up today. He was supposed to meet his friends for a game of soccer after school, which didn't leave him much time to get his brother home. The longer he'd waited on 'their bench' in front of the school, the more livid he'd become. _

_His anger, however, had slowly turned into dread, and when a small group of giggling girls had passed him by saying things like 'He's a total freak!', 'Did you see how he screamed like that, he's such a baby!', the dread had rapidly transferred into a full blown panic. _

_He'd searched the whole school after that without success, but when he'd finally heard the commotion in the alley behind the gymnasium, he just knew he'd found his brother. _

_He'd sprinted towards the group, like a boy possessed, and when the frantic screams of his brother had risen above the giggles and cruel sneers of the other kids he'd let out a brutal warrior-cry of anger. _

_The group had dispatched quickly after they'd heard him approach, with kids running away in different directions while giggling and shouting a last 'freak' or 'loser' over their shoulder. He would have gone after them in a beat, if the image of his dishevelled brother in front of him hadn't stopped him dead in his tracks. _

_His eyes burned with unshed tears as he remembered how completely wrecked his brother had looked, sitting on the ground in the middle of the alley with rumpled clothes and his otherwise neatly combed dark hair in complete disarray, with eyes swollen shut from crying, and cheeks marred red by dried-up tear-stains and bloody scratch-marks. Marks that Lincoln, with horror, discovered were self-inflicted. _

_Michael had been completely oblivious to Lincoln's presence, and had just kept on whimpering and screaming for them to stop, to make it stop, to make the hurt in his head go away, while his trembling body had kept on swaying back and forth. _

_Lincoln had called his name softly several times, but it hadn't registered, as his brother had kept on pulling at his hair frantically, with an occasional hit to the head thrown in between. _

_The moment Lincoln's hand had landed on his brother's shoulder, the boy had screamed so loud his voice had turned hoarse, while hitting Lincoln's hand away hard. What happened next would be branded on Lincoln's retinas for eternity, as he saw his hysterical and screaming brother drop on his back, while he started kicking and punching wildly around himself. _

_Michael had been completely beyond himself, trapped in a torturing hell, out of which he couldn't seem to escape. It had taken lots of muscle power and a few kicks to his stomach and neither regions, for Lincoln to drop next to his brother and wrap his arms around the small boy, effectively trapping Michael's arms between their chests and stopping him from hurting himself any longer. _

_He didn't know how long Michael had struggled against him, screaming in his ear to let go, to stop, but it had certainly felt like an eternity before the screaming and kicking had been replaced by quiet sobbing. _

_They'd stayed like that, sitting on the dirty ground, with his brother clinging to him, for more than half an hour, while Lincoln had shushed his brother over and over again. "Sssht, Michael, it's me." "Ssshht, buddy, I'm here, It's over. I'm here." _

_He hadn't needed to search long for the cause of his brother's fit, because as he'd started rocking Michael softly from side to side, his eyes had fallen on a lifeless Cicero, hanging on the fence a few feet away from them, with a strap around his neck. _

_He blinked his eyes furiously, remembering how they'd almost popped out of their sockets by shock, when he'd seen the cat's limbs suddenly twitch in an after-death convulsion. It meant that Cicero hadn't been dead for a long time, which meant that Michael had probably seen him die. _

_BASTARDS! Those fucking ruthless sons of bitches. They'd made his little brother watch while they maliciously strapped up and murdered his pet, his only friend. No wonder Michael had gone ballistic. Motherfuckers, he would kill them all! _

_He'd seen Michael throw a fit before, but those episodes didn't even come close to what he'd witnessed today. Normally Lincoln's soft whispers and gentle touch were enough to get Michael back 'out of his funk', but today nothing had seemed to work, so after long minutes of broken pleas from his brother to make the hurt in his head go away, he'd decided to go to the hospital. Now, with his still dazed brother in his arms, and the blood from Michael's facial scratches sticking to his own cheeks, he knew he'd made the right decision. _

_--_

_One agonizing hour later, he sat slumped in a chair in the waiting room, desperately yearning for any news on his brother. His arms still ached, not from carrying him so long, but from the loss of him. The minute the nurse had tried to take his brother from his arms, Michael had woken from his quiet stupor, and had started to scream and thrash like he was possessed. Lincoln had been too shocked to know how long his sobbing brother had clung to him with suffocating power, but eventually it had taken two doctors and a nurse to pry a clawing Michael away from him. _

_It had been sixty minutes, but Michael's desperate screams still resonated in his ears. "Lincoln, don't leave me!", 'Please, Linc, stay with me!", "Please, make them stop, make the hurt stop, Linc!"_

_It had been sixty minutes, but Michael's distraught face peeking from behind the doctor's broad shoulder was still dancing before his eyes, as were his brother's trembling outstretched arms, begging Lincoln to take him back, to not let go. _

_It had been sixty minutes, but his own whispered "Mikey, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" still echoed in the quiet room. _

_It had been sixty minutes, since he'd plastered his nose and hands to the small window of the door that separated him from the trauma room, where his brother had continued to thrash and scream, until one of the doctors had injected something into his arm and he'd slumped on the gurney. That had been the last he'd seen of Michael before a nurse had gently led him away to clean his face and ask him about what had happened._

_His eyes were burning, but he wouldn't allow the tears to fall until he knew for certain Michael was ok. Suddenly a quiet sound drew his attention to the door. His eyes widened, and the weight pressing on his lungs suddenly seemed a little lighter. Without wasting time his tired body sprang upright and he propelled himself towards the door. Seconds later the tears finally came, as his mother's soft arms enveloped him in a protective cocoon of warmth._

_"My sweet, sweet Lincoln." She whispered into his hair, already soothing his bruised soul with her soft voice. _

_"I got here as soon as I could, sweetie. Do you mind living on water and bread for the next month, 'cause I'm afraid I broke every traffic rule listed in the book." She quipped gently, while placing feather light kisses on his hair. He didn't smile at her attempt to brighten his mood, he just tightened his arms around her slender chest and continued to cry softly._

_They stood like that for long minutes. She, a concerned mother cradling her crying son in her arms. He, a distraught son that was almost as tall as her, but who seemed more like a small child, as he snuggled into his mother's body to seek comfort. _

_A while later Christina untangled herself a little from Lincoln, wiped away his tears and lead her son to the nearest seat. _

_"The doctors told me everything. I'm so proud of you, baby!" She squeezed his hands to emphasize her statement, while he lowered his eyes a little, not really understanding why she could be proud of him, when something so horrific had just happened. _

_"Do you understand what happened to your baby brother?" _

_"He had some kind of a fit." He answered with a croaky voice. _

_"It was a little more than a fit this time, Lincoln." His mother replied softly._

_The next few minutes she proceeded in explaining to him what the doctors had told her. He was thirteen, and old enough to understand the basics of how Michael's LLI could have made him react like he had to such a horrible event like Cicero's killing. But he still felt grateful for the way his mom tried to make it easier for him to understand. _

_She told him, about how the centre of someone's brain and soul could only be reached by passing through a long tunnel. She explained while in her and Lincoln's tunnel only a few cars full of information traveled down it at any one time, however, there was no toll house present in his brother's head to stop the unwanted cars from entering, and sometimes that just resulted in so many cars, that a traffic jam simply couldn't be avoided, resulting in a fit. _

_But today, the hurt and pain of the horrible events hadn't caused a traffic jam, it had caused a monster chain-collision, with burning fire and blinding smoke, and horrible casualties. The cars had kept on driving in, only to crash violently into the growing inferno, clogging up the whole information highway with crippling chaos and hurt._

_While a 'normal' person's tunnel consisted of solid concrete, Michael's fragile nature and heightened sensitivity for everything around him, had built a flexible tunnel with a mixture of lots of materials like wood, cement, plastic, and steal. It resulted in Michael being the creative wonder he was, but it also harbored a very horrifying danger. A danger of collapsing, when under too much pressure, with grave and irreparable damage as a result. Today that danger had been very real. _

_His face scrunched up as he tried to hold back a new wave of tears when his mother's hands cupped his cheeks, and lifted his lowered head until they made eye contact. _

_"Your brother came very close to fatally crashing today, Lincoln. It must have been festering for a while now, but those horrible kids really drove him off the edge today, and if you hadn't been there to grab him by the collar, he would have fallen of the cliff to be lost to us forever." She whispered while her own eyes filled with tears._

_"Do you understand that, baby boy. You saved him! You saved my beautiful, beautiful son. You alone, Lincoln, could have done that, and, I'm so proud of you!" _

_Her own tears spilled from her eyes silently after that, and Lincoln brought one hand up to clumsily wipe one trail of tears away from her cheek. _

_"Please don't cry, momma." He sniffled._

_He hadn't seen her cry often, but she immediately did what she always did in such a moment, she plastered a smile on her lips and elegantly wiped at the tears on her cheeks. He knew she was putting on a charade here, for his benefit, to spare him a blubbering and hurting mess of a mother, but right in this moment he was selfish and welcomed that charade with open arms._

_"Special boys like Mikey, need special brothers like you, sweetie," She began while the smile on her face grew._

_"To hold him," she hugged him crazy._

_"And to love him, and kiss him," she attacked his hair and face with dozens of small butterfly kisses that made his nose scrunch up with mock annoyance._

_"and tickle him,...crazy!"_

_Her busy fingers on his side made him squirm in his seat, and while their hearty laughter filled the room, he vowed he would always try his very best to make her and Michael proud._

"Ahhhhhhhhhh, make it stop...Lincoln...please." The tortured scream of his grown up brother brought him back to the present and without wasting any more time he hurled himself towards Michael.

That fateful episode more than twenty years back had been gruesome, but it had also taught him to recognise the signs and to act on them immediately. He'd saved his brother from going catatonic two times after that, once when their mother had passed away and once, kind off, when Michael had been thrown into the Shu next to him. He just hoped he would be able to do it a third time.

Just like the previous times, Michael screamed heartbreakingly loud and thrashed the moment Lincoln's hands made contact with him, but a more experienced Lincoln let no room for errors this time, so in only a few seconds he had dropped to his knees next to his brother and had him trapped in his strong embrace. Lincoln slumped sideways onto his backside immediately and drew a trembling Michael with him, and then he pressed his brother's head and chest to his own chest with so much power that it should have immobilised him.

"Shhht, calm down, Michael, I'm here. It's over." He breathed harshly against his brother's ear, but that seemed to be the last thing on Michael's mind.

He writhed against Lincoln's chest and clawed at his back with his hands to free himself while his voice screamed hoarsely "I raped her! I raped her, Linc!... Ahhhhhhh! ... It hurts...I can't make it stop!"

"Shhht, Buddy, it doesn't matter! It doesn't matter! It's over now." He tried to keep his voice even and calm to not upset the man in his arms even more, but it proved very hard, as Michael started to sob and shake hysterically while he suddenly clung to Lincoln like he wanted to crawl into his body.

"Just breathe, Michael, please breathe, sshhhhhht, I'm here!"

_God, Sara, please hurry! Please!_

Every passing second felt like an hour, and was filled with desperate whispers to calm his brother down and with silent prayers for Sara to bring salvation, until all of a sudden his heart stopped, because Michael had stopped struggling and sobbing suddenly, and had just slumped completely into Lincoln's embrace. With terror electrifying his every nerve-ending he softly loosened his embrace a little so he could look at Michael's face. What he saw next made his eyes grow impossibly wide as panic gripped him by the throat.

The man in his arms was nothing but a shell of his former self. His face was swollen and marred by blood and bruises, but that was still nothing in comparison with the dull and unfocussed eyes that saw right through Lincoln. The only difference with a dead man was the monotone phrase of words that fell from his lips repeatedly.

"I raped her, they're dead, they're all dead, I raped her, I raped her, they're dead, they're dead, I raped her."

The words grew softer and softer as he saw his brother slip away from him right in front of his eyes.

"No, NO! Michael, stay with me. Stay with me!" Lincoln frantically whispered, while he started shaking Michael furiously. This however had no impact on Michael, and he felt his panic transform into desperate anger.

"God dammit, Michael, fight, I tell you, FIGHT!" He shouted, while he kept on rattling his brother like a maraca in his hands.

"You fucking prick, you have no right to rescue me like that, and then leave me! Do you hear me, FIGHT!" He almost spat in the man's face. He turned his frantic eyes towards the house and bawled with everything left in him "SARA!"

But she wasn't there! The beach was empty, the house too far, and his brother was disappearing in a hole, forever lost.

A bomb full of pain and guilt exploded within himself, and he crushed his brother to his chest again, while a rainstorm of tears started to fall from his eyes.

He rocked Michael from side to side and started babbling furiously, tripping over his own tongue many times, but he needed to say these things, his brother needed to know it all, before it was too late.

"I'm so sorry, so sorry, Mikey! Please forgive me...! I know I hurt you, and let you down, but... I never wanted to, I ... only wanted to make you proud of me! Please, Michael, ... please, don't leave me, please..."

His speech was so slurred he didn't recognise the words anymore, but he kept on going.

"Don't leave me, Mikey, I have so many things to make up to you, please stay... I promise I will make it up to you, if you stay... please!"

Sobs wracked his body but he continued "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean any of it, you're not a monster, you're perfect, ... my hero, ... I need you, I love you."

After that the only whispered word passed by his lips was 'sorry', as he repeated it manically against the side of Michael's head. He had no concept of time and place, only of touch, as his arms tightened around the body in it, and of taste as his tongue experienced the rich coppery flavour of the blood on Michael's temple.

Suddenly he heard it, the voice of an angel "Lincoln! LINCOLN!" It was still far, but as he lifted his head and saw her sprinting towards them, a very dangerous bout of hope awakened every bone in his body!

--

It felt like her mind was working like a light house, because she dangled between moments of bright and heightened awareness and total blackouts. During those times of alertness she moved with high effectiveness, focussing only on those things that were absolutely necessary. Like she subconsciously knew the guiding light before her eyes would soon disappear, and when the blackness loomed she just prayed that her body would keep on functioning without the help of her mind. And it did, because for a long time her life seemed to be a scrapbook of unconnected scenes thrown together.

Lincoln's closet and bedside table, and finally the box underneath his bed. A closed box with no keys, _where are the keys?_ And no time. Then all went black.

The light from the kitchen-window blinded her eyes. When had she come downstairs? She didn't remember, but it didn't matter because the lock on the box was almost broken. Just like her hand, that felt numb from the many times she'd knocked the mallet onto the lock. SARA! The loudness of it rattled her brain. _I'm coming!_ Then, blackness claimed her again.

The vile of medicine in her left hand, check. The syringe in her right hand, check. Lincoln's name on her shouting lips, check. Legs pumping furiously, check. _Did she have everything?_ Better check again. The vile in her left hand, check. The syringe in her right, check, and then the light was gone again.

"Inject it, Sara! Inject it, Sara! NOW! Please Sara! Please, save him!" So distraught, but it didn't faze her, as her teeth bit down on the plastic sheeting around the syringe. Plastic torn, syringe filled, looking for a spot on his arm to inject, seeing only the blood and the scars on that beautiful skin, the same blood and scars that marred his pretty face, the same pretty face that harboured those dead and lifeless eyes. "I raped her, they're all dead, I raped her, they're all de," "INJECT IT, SARA!" Steel meeting skin, and then, for only a split second, time stood still, as one brother held his breath, and the other one stopped his rambling to slightly lift up his head and capture his older brother's gaze "Linc?" So soft and full of question, so scared, but so so alive.

And just before all turned dark again, she heard Lincoln's delirious laughter fill her ears, as if that one short whisper had made him the happiest man alive.

The light of the sky reflected off the sand and made her squint, but her feet didn't falter. She would keep on speed walking straight ahead, even if she was blind. The house was near, Lincoln's exhaustion was palpable, his grunts of labour and bulging biceps were testimony of that, but he too didn't falter.

They made such a weird trio and looked kind of funny, with Lincoln carrying Michael like he would a small child, with their chests pressed together and the long arms and legs of the unconscious man hanging like limp pieces of meat on both sides of Lincoln. She completed it by walking sideways close to the boys, helping to steady Michael in Lincoln's grip. Michael was entirely too tall for this, and his limp form too heavy, but either way, Lincoln made it work. And then the darkness was there again.

Washcloths coloured red with blood, skin turned clean without it. Damage report next, effective and clinical. Butterfly strips to the eye, forehead and nose, nine, bandaged bruised knuckles, eight, swollen nose, one, split lips, two, icepack around a strained wrist, one, arm full of stitches, one, shallow cuts and bruises, too many, broken hearts, three.

The bed strained under their weight, as they rolled Michael in the middle, and sandwiched him on both sides, but neither of them cared, even if the bed broke underneath them, they would still stay there, with both their bodies only an inch away from Michael, showering him with all the warmth and comfort he would need. No, the earth could go to hell, and they would still lay like that. And when the darkness came for a last time, she didn't fight it, she just pressed closer to Michael while her eyelids fell shut to welcome the black.

--

Her index-finger travelled gently along the outline of his left ear, from the strong arc of his cartilage to the softest skin of his earlobe, and back up. She was absolutely mesmerized by the shape and the perfection of his ears, and she got goosebumps all over her body from seeing and touching his right one like that.

On the periphery of her visual focus she saw the dark red of bruised skin appear as his ear was the one thing not damaged by the events of that day, but she didn't flinch, because today they had hit rock bottom, and from here on they could only go up. So, these bruises and black eyes, and injured wrists, and all the rest of this crap, it would all soon be a distant memory of the past.

Her gentle caress halted for a second as Michael whimpered a little while his legs shifted so his bare feet tangled with her sock-clad ones, but she continued her ministrations after he'd settled down again because he wouldn't wake up yet.

It had been a couple of hours since she injected the sedative. She hadn't used a lot, just enough to put him into slumber for a few hours, so she hadn't really been surprised earlier when she'd woken up and had opened her eyes to see Michael had turned on his left side in his sleep so he was facing her.

Her eyes shifted over Michael's head to a sprawled out Lincoln, and she chuckled softly. Michael had probably been forced to move and turn like that, because the bulk of his snoring brother was thoroughly conquering the largest part of the bed. But hey, she wasn't complaining, NOT AT ALL, because it had made Michael move so close to her body they were only a breath away, and she could only applaud that development.

She didn't really understand how Lincoln and her could have fallen asleep so fast after such a dreadful experience, but apparently the tumult had drained their bodies to a point of pure exhaustion. Deep down she knew that this hadn't really been the true reason for it, no. She'd lived through too many sleepless nights where her body was on the brink of collapsing, but where her troubled mind had kept her wide awake nonetheless. No, it was the promise of healing, and the realisation that it was finally, truly, over, that had made them both surrender to the darkness so easily.

Her index finger kept busy along his ear-shell, and she was so spell bound by that part of his anatomy she didn't notice Lincoln wake up until his sleepy voice broke the silence in the room.

"He has Spock ears."

She was startled for a moment and her eyes shifted to a sleepy Lincoln.

"What?" She asked confused.

"You know, Captain Kirk, beam me up Scotty, Spock with the pointy ears." He answered groggily.

"I know that, Linc, but I'm still kinda stuck on the 'what?'" she countered amused.

"Well, Spock ears, he's got them!" Lincoln said with a little more energy, while turning on his side towards them.

"He does NOT!"

"Does too!" He answered with an amused gleam in his eyes.

"DOES NOT!" She chuckled back at him while her eyes grew wide with incredulity

"Oh come on Sara, look, they're all pointy and stuff." He brought up his hand and pointed to the arc.

"Lincoln, they are ROUND, there's nothing pointy about them, see, round, totally ROUND!" she countered with mock defence.

"Hey missy, keep your pants on!" He huffed "You're almost as bad as him trying to deny the truth of it."

She groaned "Oh god, don't tell me you harassed him with this brainless discussion too."

"Countless times!" He offered, while the smuggest grin appeared on his face "Annoying my brother is what I do!"

They both chuckled quietly before her fingers found Michael's ear again.

"They're beautiful." She whispered softly, again transfixed by the perfection underneath her fingertips.

"I know." He said quietly.

"They're just perfect..., perfectly... enginEARed." She would have smirked at her own lame joke, but the damn ear had her spell-bound again.

"You just want to lick it, don't cha?"

Her mouth dropped open with shock. "Wh...what?...LINCOLN! GOD, you're unbelievable!" She scolded him amused.

"What? Can't a guy have a little fun after he went to hell and back today."

Oh he could, he could make fun of her and Michael as much as he liked, if that would take his mind away, even for a split second, from the horror that was their lives.

They locked eyes again over Michael's head, and she winked warmly, conveying so much more with that blink than any words could, and he smiled gratefully for what she'd just offered, her presence, her comfort, and moments of silliness to lighten up their moods.

She shuffled a little higher on the bed, propping her head up on her pillow so she could look at Lincoln as well as at Michael, without having to strain her neck. The next minutes were filled with comfortable silence as they both tried to catch as much of Michael's essence as possible. She tucked the hand that had been busy exploring Michael's ear between their bodies, and she revelled in the warmth their pressed together chests had created. It was slightly uncomfortable, because her strained wrist was still a little tender, but she didn't care, as the rhythmic pressure of Michael's deep belly breathing soothed away all her pain.

Though half closed eyes she saw Lincoln scoot a little closer to his brother while he laid his hand on Michael's shoulder and lowered his head until his forehead was plastered against the back of Michael's skull. They laid like this for long minutes, their bodies and souls physically connected to the root by the sleeping man between them.

She would have fallen asleep too, if it weren't for the choked voice of Lincoln filling the room.

"I'm sorry... Mikey, I'm so sorry." He croaked desperately.

Her concerned eyes opened fully as the upbeat Lincoln of minutes earlier seemed to be completely gone.

"And Sara, I'm so so sorry, ... for the wrist... I didn't mean to hurt you, I just..." He faltered while the tears made his voice sound low and unsteady.

"Hey, Linc, shhhhtt, It's alright!" She tried to soothe, but he continued.

"And, for calling you weak... you're not weak,... you're the strongest woman I know!"

She withdrew her hand from in between her and Michael's body, laying it on top of the hand on Michael's shoulder. He resisted for a second, but eventually he let her slide her fingers between his.

"Hey, Linc, look at me,...please look at me." She begged softly.

Nothing happened but she didn't press again, she just caressed his thumb with her own and waited patiently for him to come to her. His shoulder's started to shake a little while he tried to hold back his sobs so she wouldn't see him cry, but the tremor of it, transported through their pressed together bodies, reached her heart anyway, and made it sore with sadness.

"It's okay...it's okay." She whispered.

He lifted his head from against Michael after that, and what she saw made her tighten her hand around his. Lincoln looked so miserable, with tear marks on his tired features and eyes overflowing with so much guilt and sorrow, she had to blink a couple of times against the intensity of it.

She breathed in deeply and made sure she had all of his attention before she uttered the statement that would be the start of their healing process.

"I think it's time that we ALL stop taking the blame for things that were out of our control, and lay it where it belongs,... with the company. Shit happened and we all made mistakes, but that's in the past now, Lincoln. From here on we go forward, uh. No more guilt, no more anger, just forward, a clean slate, okay?" She whispered with determination powering her every word.

She saw the whirlpool of his feelings projected in his eyes, as he was carefully considering her proposition, until he locked eyes with her again and nodded softly.

She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and tried to cheer up the mood again.

"God, I hope your brother is as easily convinced as you are."

He sniffled a little, but a small grin lifted his lips. "Not a chance!"

They grinned at each other before both their gazes shifted back to the man between them. This was going to be the biggest challenge of her life, but she was more than ready to take it on. Lincoln squeezed his fingers around hers and spoke softly "Sara?"

"Hhmmmm"

"We're gonna do it right this time around."

She didn't know if it was a statement or a question, either way, her answer was a resolute yes, and after she gave him her answer his face lightened up with such a look of hopeful expectations, it even made her believe her own words.

--

Two hours later the man in the middle woke up. He felt groggy and disoriented and there was an undertone of pain humming in his body that would only grow exponentially in the next few hours, but he had no time to think about it as his head was suddenly bombarded with visions and sounds from the last day.

A whimpered sob escaped his lips as panic enveloped his trembling body, but before the sorrow could take over his whole being a slight movement against the side of his neck made him freeze momentarily. He willed his body to calm down a little and evaluate the situation he was in.

His drugged mind was working slowly, but gradually his surroundings became clear. The warm weight on his shoulder was that of his brother's hand behind him. He was snoring softly, but lay so close his puffs of breath collided with the back of Michael's neck. He opened his eyes slowly but could see nothing but grey fabric, the grey fabric of his own woollen v-neck sweater, the sweater that was now wrapped around a smaller and softer chest. Tears filled his eyes again as it became clear his face was pressed against the soft bosom of the woman who he had violated a week ago. One of her hands was trapped between their bodies, and was clinging to the fabric of his shirt as if she wanted to pull him closer even in her sleep. Clinging instead of pushing away, loving instead of hating.

He felt her lips caress the top of his head, as her face was slumped against the crown of his skull, and a silent sob broke from his mouth as he finally made a clear mental picture of their position. He'd thought today was going to be the end, they would have finally seen the real him and they would have hated and left him for it, but as the warmth of their protective shield invaded his every pore he couldn't hold back anymore, and he started to cry in earnest now. Silent tears, not of pain, but of hope.

They didn't wake, but they didn't have to, because he felt the grip on his shoulder tighten and the hand between his and Sara's chest pull at the fabric. Even while unconscious they were there for him, and that was the biggest comfort they could give him.

He cried for minutes in a row, and just before his mind surrendered to the throws of slumber once again he vowed to himself, that he would try to do it right this time around!

* * *

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

WOOHOO!! I finally did it. The healing can finally begin. Woah, and it took me only 18 chapters to get through the hard part grins stupidly. Anyhow, now I owe you 18 chapters of sexual healing, and angst-fluff. YAY! Just raise your hand if you want that!

Hope it was worth the wait.

X Mie


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